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When someone famous dies, particularly if they are young or it was unexpected, it is natural for their fans to want to know what happened. But, as the reporting on the tragic death of singer Liam Payne shows, the media does not always handle this appropriately or ethically.

The singer, 31, fell to his death from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires while under the influence of “drugs or alcohol”, local police said. LA-based celebrity news website TMZ initially reported the story alongside graphic images of Payne’s body.

After a backlash, TMZ removed the photos, but executive editor Michael Babock defended publication, claiming the site was “trying to confirm reports Liam had died before police had established his identity”.

Other mainstream outlets published transcripts or recordings of a 911 call made to police shortly before Payne was found, and an Argentinian newspaper published images of Payne’s hotel room which included images of drugs paraphernalia.

This is certainly not the first time the media, and TMZ in particular, has come under fire for insensitive or harmful reporting of celebrity deaths. When basketball great Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash in January 2020, TMZ shared the news before police were able to notify his family. Bryant’s widow later testified that she learned of her husband and daughter’s deaths through social media. This breaches the UK’s journalism codes of practice.

In their quest to get a scoop, what precautions and sensitivities do journalists have to respect when it comes to reporting sudden and tragic deaths?

Media guidelines and ethics

The ethical standards and guidelines vary from country to country. In the UK,
these are set out by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) and independent press monitor Impress for print media, and by Ofcom for broadcasters.

An Ipso clause around intrusion into grief and shock says journalists should make enquiries with “sympathy and discretion” and publication should be handled “sensitively”.

Ofcom has similar guidelines for broadcasters. The section on privacy states: “When people are caught up in events which are covered by the news they still have a right to privacy.”

This can be infringed if “warranted”, says Ofcom, for example if it is in the public interest. This could include revealing or detecting crime, protecting public health or safety, exposing misleading claims or disclosing incompetence. But a tragic death, even of a high profile person, is unlikely to meet this standard.

Broadcasters should not interview or film people who have experienced a personal tragedy unless it is “warranted” or they have given consent. And journalists are advised not to “reveal the identity of someone who has died unless it is clear that the next of kin have been informed”.

Impress, which regulates more independent journalism, has released a statement condemning the reporting of Payne’s death.

It said: “The defence of publishing in the public interest does not give outlets carte blanche to report the most intimate details of a celebrity’s life, or their death.”

It is important to state at this stage that what happened prior to Payne’s tragic death and his intentions at the time are unknown. It is the job of the coroner to investigate and come to a conclusion at his inquest.

The effect of reporting on tragedy

Beyond accuracy and respect for the victim of a tragedy and their family, there are wider concerns that journalists should take into account.

Research conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) has shown irresponsible media reporting of celebrity deaths, particularly suicides, can increase suicide rates.

One study examining patterns of suicide and media coverage found that in the five months following comic Robin Williams’ death in 2014, there were 1,841 more deaths from suicide in the USA compared to the same period the previous year – a 9.85% rise.

The WHO’s international guidelines for reporting suicide urge the media to avoid sensationalism. Journalists should not provide details about methods, and should include information about mental health resources in stories.

Analysis of over 100 academic studies found repeated coverage and high-profile news stories were most strongly associated with copycat behaviour.

The WHO states: “Such stories can inadvertently function as celebrity endorsements of suicidal behaviour and it is known that celebrity endorsements can have an impact on behaviour of the public.”

A memorial to the deceased singer Liam Payne in Copenhagen.
Emil Nicolai Helms/EPA-EFE

Sensitive reporting can reduce the risk of copycat suicides. Providing context in relation to mental health challenges and offering resources for support is vital.

In the UK, guidelines were first drawn up by the Samaritans charity in 1994 to improve reporting on suicide and prevent copycat attempts. These are taught to journalism students on courses accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Guidance includes avoiding “dramatic” headlines, emotive or sensational pictures or video footage and excessive amounts of coverage. Not speculating about the trigger or cause is urged, because it can oversimplify the issue.

“Coverage that reflects the wider issues around suicide, including that it is preventable, can help reduce the risk of suicidal behaviour”, the guidelines state. “Include clear and direct references to resources and support organisations.”

Making a change

Despite all of these guidelines, many media outlets flout them in the race for clicks. It is heartening that there has been so much outrage at the publication of the images of Payne, but some members of the public still seem to have an insatiable appetite for it. Nothing, it seems, is off limits.

We need to take collective responsibility. Journalists and editors should reacquaint themselves with responsible reporting guidelines and put themselves in the bereaved family’s shoes. Members of the public can also do their bit by not clicking on or sharing this kind of material, so editorial priorities change.

Ultimately, our thoughts must be with Payne and his loved ones. A death so young is a real tragedy and those who loved him will be affected for the rest of their lives.

If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support:
In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123.
In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433.
In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14.
In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country. Läs mer…

The US Department of Justice may be on the verge of seeking a break-up of Google in a bid to make it less dominant. If the government goes ahead and is successful in the courts, it could mean the company being split into separate entities – a search engine, an advertising company, a video website, a mapping app – which would not be allowed to share data with each other.

While this is still a distant prospect, it is being considered in the wake of a series of rulings in the US and the EU which suggest that regulators are becoming increasingly frustrated by the power of big tech. That power tends to be highly concentrated, whether it’s Google’s monopoly as a search engine, Meta’s data gathering from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, or by small businesses becoming dependent on Amazon.

But what would a breakup of these tech giants achieve for consumers? Those in favour of shaking up Silicon Valley in this way argue that it would lead to more competition and more choice. And the best-case future scenario might look something like this:

The year is 2030, and you are on your way to meet a friend for a meal. You receive a message notification on WhatsApp, which was sent by your friend using her Signal messaging app. Sending and receiving messages from different apps is now so common you barely notice it.

In fact, “interoperability” – where different systems and tech work seamlessly together – is everywhere. In the same way you could send an email from Gmail to Hotmail back in 2024, you can now choose from a range of social media apps – alongside Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat – with text, pictures and video posted on one network easily accessible via another.

You choose an app because you like the way it looks or the way it filters and presents content – not just because everyone else is on it.

Similarly, your choice of restaurant and information on directions came from apps you have chosen from a much wider selection than the one you had access to back in 2024. You look at reviews produced by people you follow, irrespective of the platform they used to share it.

Product placement and AI-generated content have practically disappeared, as the mapping app does not want to risk giving you advice you don’t want. If it did, you would simply switch to a competitor which provides a superior service.

This increased level of competition is central to those who argue for breaking up big tech. Instead of app developers having to pay 30% of their sales to Google or Apple, there would be numerous app stores available, all competing to offer the best apps by cutting their profit margins. The theory is that the app market – and technological innovation – would thrive as a result.

Research also suggests that the existence of competing apps makes consumers less lazy, and forces businesses to deliver better products, and better value for money.

Private browsing

In 2024, you would have had to trust the results provided to you by Google search, Google Maps, or a Google advert. And because Google owned your data, it could auction information about you to other businesses trying to reach you, without your say.

You might have found Google’s services useful, but most of the benefit from personalised data would have gone to Google. And another big change that could come from breaking up big tech is that you might finally become the unique owner of that data.

Potentially, you would be the only one with full access to your browsing history – the products you searched for, the ones you bought and the ones you almost bought. You would own the information about where you went for lunch, what you ordered, and how much you spent.

Other information that would be owned by you might include how you commute to work, which video clips make you laugh, and which books you finished and the ones you abandoned immediately. The same goes for how you met your partner online, your dating history, and the health data your watch has collected about how hard you work at the gym.

Your workout, your data.
PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

In the imagined year of 2030, you would keep this data on an encrypted server, and different companies would offer apps to help you organise and manage your information. Whenever you wanted to, you could decide to use your data for your own purposes.

Breaking up is hard to do

Splitting up big tech companies is not without risks however. An obvious consequence is that those big companies would be less profitable.

Right now, Google and Meta make (a lot of) money from advertising, and this is only possible because they own so much information about us. If they didn’t, they might end up charging users for the services they provide.

Interoperability and greater competition may also provide more room for scam app operators. And while more choice about apps may be fine for some, it may be problematic for those who find modern technology challenging enough already.

For regulators though, the challenge of modern technology seems to be a sense of powerlessness. And if they do decide to take the radical option and break up dominant companies, it could make a big difference to the online world for all of us. Läs mer…

On October 21 1964, the iconic and much-celebrated film My Fair Lady premiered in Hollywood. Sixty years later, the film remains an enjoyable rollick full of catchy songs, but is not a wholly accurate depiction of what linguists do – certainly not nowadays at least.

Linguists are far from the academics who are most frequently depicted in films. It’s normally the white-coat, work-in-a-lab, scientist-of-some-nondescript-sort professors who get to give stark warnings or unsettling research insights to the maverick protagonist. But My Fair Lady is a film all about linguistics (and also class, love and terrible Cockney accents – more on that later).

In the film, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), takes under his wing a Cockney flower seller called Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn). He wagers with his friend and fellow haughty linguist, Colonel Pickering, that he can teach her to speak “properly”.

It seems at first there is no hope but – hoorah! – Eliza finally grasps it, suddenly blurting out “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” in a perfect imitation of Queen’s English.

Doolittle then dazzles at an embassy ball, the perfect replica of an upstanding posh woman – or, as the film’s title suggests, a “lady” (itself a problematic word which encodes sexist tropes about what should be aspirational and respectable for women).

She even fools a man who has made a name for himself by identifying imposters based on their accent. Though, you may also wonder if she evades detection by barely speaking at the ball, converted into a demure and unforthcoming shadow of her previously forthright, unapologetic and garrulous self.

Professor Higgins: not your typical linguist

My Fair Lady avoids the common pitfall of assuming that the primary endeavour of the linguist is to learn as many different languages as they can, collecting them like stamps (the film Arrival can take note). But it still doesn’t get our job quite right.

I, for one, have never groomed a young, destitute woman to speak “correctly” while moulding her into a “respectable”, posh woman (if only modern academia granted the breathing space for such folly).

Linguists love, celebrate and are constantly itching to understand, study and explore the diverse tapestry of accents, dialects and languages that exist in the UK and around the world. We have no interest in reinforcing any societal ideal for a supposedly “correct” accent, or throwing a grammar rule book at unwitting members of the public.

By contrast, Higgins is repulsed by any accent that is not Queen’s English (which, by a wonderful turn of luck, is also his accent). In the opening number, he has a pop at the dialects of Yorkshire, Cornwall, America, Scotland and Ireland.

But he is particularly dismayed and repulsed that Doolittle, despite being from London, has a strong London accent (or she is meant to at least – I can only imagine Hepburn was instructed to open her mouth as wide as possible for all vowels and caw like a crow if all else fails).

Higgins makes various proclamations which will have you shouting at the telly, “Steady on, Professor!”. In his words:

Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter / Condemned by every syllable she ever utters / By right, she should be taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

Best not tell him “hanged” is the past tense of “hang” when referring to capital punishment, else he walk himself straight to the gallows.

With a little bit of accent prejudice

The real beast in disguise at the embassy ball is not young, Cockney, Eliza Doolittle. It is misogyny and contempt for the working class that hides behind a mask of maintaining good standards and protecting the English language.

It is no coincidence that women and working-class people (and Cockneys who are often seen as emblematic of the working class) often bear the brunt of accent prejudice.

Accent prejudice is a smokescreen for broader societal prejudice. My Fair Lady seems antiquated and quaint in many ways – like Higgins using a gramophone to play back recordings of Doolittle – but accent prejudice is alive and well.

Women in the UK such as Alex Scott, Angela Rayner and Priti Patel still routinely face criticism, commentary and contempt for their regional accents.

Read more:
Ask or aks? How linguistic prejudice perpetuates inequality

You might think that the film’s lesson is for Doolittle to take on the world with her freshly mastered “standard” accent. After all, she consented to being ridiculed and paraded around like a show dog as she felt her accent prevented her from getting a job in a flower shop. Now, nothing stands in her way.

But people should not have to change their accent to get along – and it is not always possible or even a guaranteed ticket out of discrimination. If we take the accent out of accent prejudice, we are still left with the prejudice – let’s remove the prejudice and be left with the accent.

We need more unapologetically working-class women with regional accents at the embassy ball, but also in politics, academia, in the media and in all walks of life.

In the film, Doolittle ultimately feels she has been used and disrespected, leading her to sour on Higgins. After she leaves, he grows to miss her and wistfully plays back recordings of her voice.

And this is the real lesson for viewers today. Higgins has gotten to know Doolittle as a person and now sees beyond her accent and his own prejudice. The more we hear people with regional accents, the more normal and uneventful it becomes, and the more we will focus on what they say and not how they say it. Läs mer…

I didn’t seek out The Vegetarian when I first read it. I was on a book buying ban and in the lucky position to be living with a fellow hoarder. As I perused our combined stacks, a slim volume by an author I hadn’t heard of caught my eye, and I am glad it did. The Vegetarian by Han Kang, is exactly my sort of story: dark, disturbing and beautifully wrought.

Yeong-hye is, as her husband charmingly says, “completely unremarkable in every way” – that is, until she becomes vegetarian. This decision sends her world, and her extended family’s, spinning aggressively off its axis. You may be thinking this is a bit dramatic (vegetarianism is normal), and it is.

The Korean satirical sensibility often disturbs you into realising humanity is messed up. Parasite (winner of the Oscar for best picture in 2020), Oldboy (the 2003 thriller that inspired John Wick) and The Vegetarian are born of the same sort of urgency to expose our shared ability for violence, which they attest is always there, simmering just beneath the surface.

The Vegetarian won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, and Kang has now emerged as the surprise winner of this year’s Nobel prize in literature. She is one of the youngest writers to win. Artful is a word that comes to mind when thinking about her sparse and beautiful prose, which also manages to be so dense in meaning. It makes sense that Kang is a poet, and this quality in her translations is a testament to her translator, Deborah Smith.

As our writer, Jenni Ramone, notes, The Vegetarian was likely to have been the work that influenced the judging panel the most. Kang manages to fit a lot of horror into this slim text (it’s less than 200 pages) without it feeling crowded. It’s a searing novel, visceral and savage in its imagery, which is so elegantly and economically described.

I am currently in the lucky position of possessing an early reader copy of Kang’s newest novel We Do Not Part, which is out next year. I am so excited to get stuck in. Until then, I urge you to read The Vegetarian and to delve further into Kang’s catalogue, her poetry in particular.

This got us thinking about the difference between writing poetry and prose. Is it obvious that a good poet would write good prose, and vice versa? Answer our poll and reply to this email with your thoughts and examples where poets have written good or bad prose, and prose writers have written bad or good poetry.

Read more:
Han Kang: innovative South Korean author wins the 2024 Nobel prize for literature

Korean art and British horror

Hallyu, the wave of Korean art and culture that has taken the west by storm, is going strong. Literature is getting its moment in the sun right now, and maybe Korea’s art will be next. If you want to be ahead of the curve, you should head down to London’s Southbank where you can catch artist Haegue Yang’s Leap Year at the Hayward Gallery.

The work is bright and bold, Yang is certainly an original and radical. The exhibition is a major retrospective of her work in which you will find collage, sculpture and installations featuring sound and even scent. Our reviewer, Martin Lang, writes: “Yang’s work suggests that art, too, has the power to bridge divides and foster empathy, breaking down barriers between cultures.”

Read more:
Haegue Yang’s Leap Year is a bold and diverse show mixing cultural references and folk traditions

“I remember watching it as a teenager in a lesson at school and once was enough for me,” writes politics academic Mark Lacy of the BBC film Threads, a truly terrifying imagining of the impact of a nuclear war on a city in the north of England from 1984. The film hasn’t been available to watch for decades, but has recently been put on iPlayer for us all to relive its horror.

As Lacy outlines, “it’s a brutal and grim tour of the aftermath of nuclear war, which anyone who viewed it when originally aired may struggle to watch again”. Lacy watched it at a time when the possibility of cold war tensions escalating was very real. While we have certainly been exposed to more nuclear fallout stories since, the film is once again available to watch at a time when the fear of attacks on nuclear facilities is again in the news.

Read more:
Threads: the harrowing 1984 BBC docudrama is back on our screens – scary but appropriate viewing for our uncertain times

The making of legends

The film The Apprentice also comes at a time of great nervousness as the US election draws near. The film, set in the 1970s and 1980s, charts the business career of presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It centres around Trump’s relationship with the prosecutor Roy Cohn, from whom he is said to have learned underhanded ways of business and Machiavellian dealmaking.

As our reviewer, professor of international relations Michelle Bentley, writes, it comes at a controversial time – with fewer than three weeks until the election. “The film seeks to get inside Trump’s mindset, not only as a businessperson, but unpicking what drove him in the White House, as well as the election he’s now fighting,” writes Bentley, who goes on to explain whether the film will affect the election at all. It is certainly a major event in this dramatic election.

Read more:
The Apprentice: released so close to the polls, this Trump biopic is inevitably political

There are so many brilliant music documentaries giving long-deserved dues to musicians who have fallen into obscurity but who had major influence on so many artists and genres. Think the films Searching For Sugarman and Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande. A wonderful new addition to this genre is Harder Than the Rock about the Cimarons.

This lovely piece by sociologist Kenny Monrose is full of childhood anecdotes of their music. The group were the UK’s first reggae band, and looking at the long list of people they worked with, from Bob Marley to Paul McCartney, it’s startling how little known they are – even by the film’s director, Mark Warmington. My colleague Anna said she had a wonderful afternoon editing Monrose’s piece while listening to the band’s music, which you we highly recommend you do too.

Read more:
Why the Cimarons are one of the greatest British bands of all time – as documentary Harder Than the Rock shows Läs mer…

To much media fanfare and growing public anticipation, the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals (1988) begins on October 18. Cooper’s novel, first published in 1988, is a key “bonkbuster” text – a largely forgotten genre of women’s writing from the 1980s.

Bonkbusters have three key components: they’re full of sex (the bonking) and wildly over the top in terms of storylines and characters, and they were extraordinarily popular (the buster part).

However, like its televisual sister genre, the soap opera, the bonkbuster receded into the background of popular culture in the 21st century. So why is the bonkbuster having a cultural moment in 2024? What is the appeal of adapting a text like Rivals?

We have been researching the bonkbuster genre for a couple of years, looking at its authors, themes and publishing history and talking to readers about their experiences with the genre, both at the time and now.

Wikipedia

Also known as the “sex-and-shopping” novel, the bonkbuster was a phenomenally popular genre of women’s writing in the 1980s and 1990s. Besides Cooper, authors like Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, and Judith Krantz wrote about sex, marriage, friendship and scandal, against a luxurious backdrop of 1980s commercial excess.

‘A Milky Way when you’ve got a fridge full of posh chocolate’

Cooper’s Rivals is fairly typical of the genre – one of the readers in our study, Samantha, aptly described it as: “a full-fat, fun, frothy novel set around class, privilege and horses”. It’s the second in Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles, following Riders (1985).

Rivals follows two competing television consortiums: Corinium, run by the villainous Tony Baddingham (played by David Tennant); and Venturer, set up by handsome Irish TV star Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner), plucky Cockney businessman Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer), and notorious lothario Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell), as they bid for the local TV franchise.

They are helped (and hindered) along the way by American TV executive Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), Declan’s actress-wife Maud (Victoria Smurfitt) and unhappily married author Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson).

Nafessa Williams as Cameron Cook.
Disney

This might sound like fairly dry fare, but amid all the clandestine meetings and boardroom bust-ups, the characters fall in and out of love, have gleeful, adulterous affairs, and host lavish dinner parties, balls and naked tennis matches. Tory Rupert even finds time to be minister for sport – until Labour win the election.

Great fun and very funny, Cooper’s books are famously tongue-in-cheek. However, the bonkbuster is also a product of its time – its references and values are, as study participant Samantha observed, “so 1980s”. What, then, is the appeal of books (and now TV shows) like Rivals?

For some readers, the attraction is familiarity. Another reader, Hazel, said: “I don’t have that sense of ‘I cannot put this book down’ because I know exactly what’s coming. They’re so well thumbed, and all wrinkled at the edges because they’ve all fallen in the bath a few times.”

Readers love the fantasy and escapism offered by the genre. As Hazel remarked, “It’s like still wanting a Milky Way when you’ve got a fridge full of Godiva chocolate … Sometimes you just want the sugary fluff.”

There are much-loved characters: Declan O’Hara remains a firm reader favourite, and there is still a lot of affection for Freddie, the rough-diamond industrialist who has lots of money and a terrible wife. Readers also remember the romance between Rupert and Declan’s daughter Taggie (Bella Maclean) fondly, even as they raise an eyebrow at their age gap (Rupert is 37, Taggie 19).

There’s also pleasure to be found in the setting. Cooper sets her novels in the cheekily named county of Rutshire, a fictionalised version of the Cotswolds, with vivid descriptions of stately homes and lush rural landscapes.

The problematic 1980s

But there are some aspects of the text that readers feel differently about, reading now, decades later. Some are simple: fashions have definitely changed, for instance, and the golden era of regional TV franchises has long passed.

More complex, though, are some of the attitudes. While many readers still dearly love these books, they also note some elements that have not aged well: “The class issues … the sexism, racism, homophobia”, says Samantha. Cooper herself once noted that serial womaniser Rupert would probably be “locked up in prison”, post #MeToo.

Readers in our study have particularly commented on the role of Cameron Cook in Rivals, a ruthlessly ambitious and occasionally unlikeable female American TV executive who is “caricatured as this ball-breaking go-getter,” according to Hazel. They wondered if the book were to be published today, whether Cameron would be written as a softer, more relatable character – and, perhaps, treated better by the men around her.

Our readers were also acutely aware of the domestic violence in the book, which they found uncomfortable on rereading. Rivals has several instances of male violence against women, including one so severe the victim requires stitches afterwards – but still defends her attacker.

While readers still find great pleasure in Rivals and other bonkbusters, they simultaneously negotiate some of these more problematic elements as they read the book again, trying to hold the 1980s and the 2020s in their minds at the same time.

Jilly Cooper CBE.
Stephen Shepherd

It seems likely that the Rivals adaptation will be a commercial success: not only does it build on an audience of loyal readers, but it is also receiving lots of positive early reviews as a hilarious escapist romp.

Directed by Ted Lasso director Elliot Hegarty, and produced by soap director Dominic Treadwell-Collins, the series seems to be aiming for a blend of high-drama soap and quality production values. This is bolstered by the ensemble cast, including many well-known British actors.

Yet, the novel remains inescapably a product of the 1980s, from its second-wave feminist values to characters’ concerns about Aids. As can be seen from the trailer – joyfully belting out Robert Palmer’s 1986 hit Addicted to Love – the adaptation is proudly retaining the 1980s setting. It will be interesting to see just how much of its 1980s values and attitudes remain.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. Läs mer…

Israel has announced it has killed Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. Sinwar was apparently killed in a chance encounter on October 16 after a tank unit opened fire on a group of Palestinian men running into a building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. His body was found in the rubble and later identified as the Hamas leader.

It’s an important moment in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Sinwar’s death follows a campaign of assassination of top Hamas leaders by Israel since the latest round of hostilities began after the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7 2023.

Middle East analyst Scott Lucas of University College Dublin addresses some of the key issues raised by Sinwar’s killing.

How badly Sinwar’s death hit Hamas’s command structure?

Just over a year after its mass October 7 killings inside Israel, overseen by Yahya Sinwar, Hamas as an organisation is in disarray. It is not just the killing of Sinwar in the chance encounter with Israeli forces in Rafah. Sinwar’s death adds to a lengthy roll call of top Hamas leaders during the past year.

Principally, this includes Mohammed Deif, who planned the October 7 attacks, and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Beirut on July 31. These three are just the most prominent identities among a host of other senior officials and military commanders killed by Israel in Gaza or Lebanon.

Sinwar’s younger brother, Mohammed, 49, is likely to take over military command. And veteran figures such as Khaled Meshaal – who led Hamas’s political bureau from 1996 to 2017 – remain. But they will struggle to sustain the organisation, particularly if the Israeli government presses its military advantage and continues to identify and assassinate Hamas’s high command.

But that does not mean that Hamas as a movement is finished. Mass killing, even of its leaders, could galvanise it in the longer run. Those who survive will move up through the ranks, and the spirit of resistance and resentment could bring in more recruits.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can claim “victory” over Sinwar, Haniyeh and Deif. But victory over Hamas, particularly if Israel pursues an open-ended occupation in Gaza, may not be assured.

What did Sinwar represent as a symbol of Palestinian resistance?

For many in Palestine and beyond, Sinwar will be hailed as a martyr and icon of resistance. He was with Hamas from its first years, spent 22 years in an Israeli prison, and took command in Gaza from 2017. He never wavered in his belief that Hamas would prevail over Israel’s blockade, detentions, and military operations.

But for others, Sinwar may be remembered as a divisive, even cruel figure. He built his career in Hamas on the killing of supposed “collaborators” with Israel. He was suspected of the torture and execution of rivals. And his leadership of the October 7 mass killings may be recalled as “resistance” which needlessly sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands and displaced almost 2 million of those whom he was supposedly representing.

Does his death clear the way for a younger generation more amenable to a ceasefire deal and the return of the hostages?

It will take months, perhaps years before we see where that “younger generation” will take Hamas. In the meantime, the interim political and military command of the battered organisation will face their immediate challenge. Can they still get some return, such as the freeing of Palestinians from Israeli prisons and the continued presence of Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for the release of the hostages? Or do they have to accept capitulation, possible expulsion, and Israeli occupation?

Families of Isreali hostages react to the news of Sinwar’s death by demanding the release of their loved ones.
Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/Alamy Live News

Barring an unexpected change in the US position, putting pressure on Netanyahu, all the cards are in Israel’s hand for now.

What’s Israel’s next move?

Ask Netanyahu. He has the option of proclaiming “mission accomplished”. However, that will not be true for many Israelis as long as the hostages are not returned. Without that resolution, Netanyahu will run the risk of losing power if forced to an election and even the resumption of court proceedings over bribery charges if he halts military operations.

Israel’s expansion of the war into Lebanon has improved his position to an extent. It has reconciled him with the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who was privately saying Israel had no “endgame” in Gaza. And it has improved his approval ratings.

So it remains in his interest to continue hostilities in both Gaza and Lebanon. And indeed Netanyahu has signalled his intention to press on. But he has also said that while it is not the end, it is “the beginning of the end”.

While Netanyahu may pay lip service to the resumption of ceasefire talks, that will likely be conditional on the expulsion of Hamas from Gaza. And with no clear alternative for governance in the Strip, that points – as with the West Bank – to indefinite Israeli occupation.

Read more:
Israel: what hardliners in Netanyahu’s government want from the war

How will Iran respond?

With the decimation of its Hamas and Hezbollah allies, Iran’s regime appears to have no good options at present. Amid economic and political problems at home and outmatched by Israel in military capabilities, the regime has avoided direct confrontation.

Iran could continue to pursue “indirect” war through militias in Iraq and Syria attacking US personnel with rockets and drones, or with Yemen’s Houthis lobbing missiles at Israel and again threatening Red Sea shipping. It could expand cyber-attacks and its own attempted assassinations abroad.

Protestors show support for Sinwar and other Palestinian, Hezbollah and Houthi leaders at a demonstration in Tunis, October 2024.
Hasan Mrad/IMAGESLIVE via ZUMA Press Wire

But those options would have little immediate effect, and would risk retaliation from the US and further isolation in the international community. The US is already using B-2 stealth bombers to attack Houthi bases in Yemen.

So for now, Iran’s leaders and their spokespeople are likely to take the political route, condemning Israel and proclaiming that the “axis of resistance” will be strengthened through its losses.

Read more:
As its conflict with Israel escalates, could Iran now acquire a nuclear bomb?

Can Washington now pressure Israel to do a deal with the Palestinians?

This is perhaps the easiest question to answer. Unless the US cuts military aid to Israel or comes out for an unconditional ceasefire, it has little if any leverage with Netanyahu.

How does this affect the US election campaign?

Foreign policy is rarely a priority for most US voters, and even the mass killing of the past year is unlikely to change that. But on the margins of the US presidential election, the escalating toll in Gaza and Lebanon could alienate Arab American voters from the Democrats in Michigan, one of the seven states that will decide the contest.

More broadly, the impression of Netanyahu pushing around a “weak” Biden administration could take hold. And in a toss-up election, those margins could be decisive.

Read more:
How the Middle East conflict could influence the US election – and why Arab Americans in swing states might vote for Trump Läs mer…

Fall for me as a teenager meant football games, homecoming dresses – and haunted houses. My friends organized group trips to the local fairground, where barn sheds were turned into halls of horror, and masked men nipped at our ankles with (chainless) chain saws as we waited in line, anticipating deeper frights to come once we were inside.

I’m not the only one who loves a good scare. Halloween attractions company America Haunts estimates Americans are spending upward of US$500 million annually on haunted house entrance fees simply for the privilege of being frightened. And lots of fright fans don’t limit their horror entertainment to spooky season, gorging horror movies, shows and books all year long.

To some people, this preoccupation with horror can seem tone deaf. School shootings, child abuse, war – the list of real-life horrors is endless. Why seek manufactured fear for entertainment when the world offers real terror in such large quantities?

As a developmental psychologist who writes dark thrillers on the side, I find the intersection of psychology and fear intriguing. To explain what drives this fascination with fear, I point to the theory that emotions evolved as a universal experience in humans because they help us survive. Creating fear in otherwise safe lives can be enjoyable – and is a way for people to practice and prepare for real-life dangers.

Fear can feel good

Controlled fear experiences – where you can click your remote, close the book, or walk out of the haunted house whenever you want – offer the physiological high that fear triggers, without any real risk.

When you perceive yourself under threat, adrenaline surges in your body and the evolutionary fight-or-flight response is activated. Your heart rate increases, you breathe deeper and faster, and your blood pressure goes up. Your body is preparing to defend itself against the danger or get away as fast as possible.

This physical reaction is crucial when facing a real threat. When experiencing controlled fear – like jump scares in a zombie TV show – you get to enjoy this energized sensation, similar to a runner’s high, without any risks. And then, once the threat is dealt with, your body releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, which provides sensations of pleasure and relief.

In one study, researchers found that people who visited a high-intensity haunted house as a controlled fear experience displayed less brain activity in response to stimuli and less anxiety post-exposure. This finding suggests that exposing yourself to horror films, scary stories or suspenseful video games can actually calm you afterward. The effect might also explain why my husband and I choose to relax by watching zombie shows after a busy day at work.

Going through something frightening together – like a haunted house attraction – can be a bonding experience.
AP Photo/John Locher

The ties that bind

An essential motivation for human beings is the sense of belonging to a social group. According to the surgeon general, Americans who miss those connections are caught up in an epidemic of loneliness, which leaves people at risk for mental and physical health issues.

Going through intense fear experiences together strengthens the bonds between individuals. Good examples include veterans who served together in combat, survivors of natural disasters, and the “families” created in groups of first responders.

I’m a volunteer firefighter, and the unique connection created through sharing intense threats, such as entering a burning building together, manifests in deep emotional bonds with my colleagues. After a significant fire call, we often note the improved morale and camaraderie of the firehouse. I feel a flood of positive emotions anytime I think of my firefighting partners, even when the events occurred months or years ago.

Controlled fear experiences artificially create similar opportunities for bonding. Exposure to stress triggers not only the fight-or-flight response, but in many situations it also initiates what psychologists call the “tend-and-befriend” system. A perceived threat prompts humans to tend to offspring and create social-emotional bonds for protection and comfort. This system is largely regulated by the so-called “love hormone” oxytocin.

The tend-and-befriend reaction is particularly likely when you experience stress around others with whom you have already established positive social connections. When you encounter stressors within your social network, your oxytocin levels rise to initiate social coping strategies. As a result, when you navigate a recreational fear experience like a haunted house with friends, you are setting the emotional stage to feel bonded with the people beside you.

Sitting in the dark with friends while you watch a scary movie or navigating a haunted corn maze with a date is good for your health, in that it helps you strengthen those social connections.

Consuming lots of horror as entertainment may make some people more resilient in real life.
Edwin Tan/E+ via Getty Images

An ounce of prevention = a pound of cure

Controlled fear experiences can also be a way for you to prepare for the worst. Think of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the films “Contagion” and “Outbreak” trended on streaming platforms as people around the world sheltered at home. By watching threat scenarios play out in controlled ways through media, you can learn about your fears and emotionally prepare for future threats.

For example, researchers at Aarhus University’s Recreational Fear Lab in Denmark demonstrated in one study that people who regularly consumed horror media were more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic than nonhorror fans. The scientists suggest that this resilience might be a result of a kind of training these fans went through – they practiced coping with the fear and anxiety provoked by their preferred form of entertainment. As a result, they were better prepared to manage the real fear triggered by the pandemic.

When I’m not teaching, I’m an avid reader of crime fiction. I also write psychological thrillers under the pen name Sarah K. Stephens. As both a reader and writer, I notice similar themes in the books I am drawn to, all of which tie into my own deep-rooted fears: mothers who fail their children somehow, women manipulated into subservience, lots of misogynist antagonists.

I enjoy writing and reading about my fears – and seeing the bad guys get their just desserts in the end – because it offers a way for me to control the story. Consuming these narratives lets me mentally rehearse how I would handle these kinds of circumstances if any were to manifest in my real life.

Survive and thrive

In the case of controlled fear experiences, scaring yourself is a pivotal technique to help you survive and adapt in a frightening world. By eliciting powerful, positive emotions, strengthening social networks and preparing you for your worst fears, you’re better able to embrace each day to its fullest.

So the next time you’re choosing between an upbeat comedy and a creepy thriller for your movie night, pick the dark side – it’s good for your health. Läs mer…

The walking, talking, dancing Optimus robots at the recent Tesla demonstration generated huge excitement. But this turned to disappointment as it became apparent that much of what was happening was actually being controlled remotely by humans.

As much as this might still be a fascinating glimpse of the future, it’s not the first time that robots have turned out to be a little too good to be true.

Take Sophia, for instance, the robot created by Texas-based Hanson Robotics back in 2016. She was presented by the company as essentially an intelligent being, prompting numerous tech specialists to call this out as well beyond our capabilities at the time.

Similarly we’ve seen carefully choreographed videos of pre-scripted action sequences like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas gymnastics, the English-made Ameca robot “waking up”, and most recently Tesla’s Optimus in the factory. Obviously these are still impressive in different ways, but they’re nowhere near the complete sentient package. Let Optimus or Atlas loose in a random home and you’d see something very different.

A humanoid robot capable of working in our homes needs to be capable of doing many different tasks, using our tools, navigating our environments and communicating with us like a human. If you thought this was just a year or two away, you’re going to be disappointed.

Building robots able to interact and carry out complex tasks in our homes and streets is still a huge challenge. Designing them even to do one specific task well, such as opening a door, is phenomenally difficult.

There are so many door handles with different shapes, weights and materials, not to mention the complexity of dealing with unforeseen circumstances such as a locked door or objects blocking the way. Developers have actually now created a door-opening robot, but robots that can deal with hundreds of everyday tasks are still some way off.

Behind the curtain

The Tesla demonstration’s “Wizard of Oz” remote operation technique is a commonly used control method in this field, giving researchers a benchmark against which to test their real advances. Known as telemetric control, this has been around for some time, and is becoming more advanced.

One of the authors of this article, Carl Strathearn, was at a conference in Japan earlier this year, where a keynote speaker from one of the top robotics labs demonstrated an advanced telemetrics system. It allowed a single human to simultaneously operate many humanoid robots semi-autonomously, using pre-scripted movements, conversation prompts and computerised speech.

Clearly, this is very useful technology. Telemetric systems are used to control robots working in dangerous environments, disability healthcare and even in outer space. But the reason why a human is still at the helm is because even the most advanced humanoid robots, such as Atlas, are not yet reliable enough to operate completely independently in the real world.

Another major problem is what we can call social AI. Leading generative AI programs such as DeepMind’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4 Vision may be a foundation for creative autonomous AI systems for humanoid robots in the future. But we should not be misled into believing that such models mean that a robot is now capable of functioning well in the real world.

Interpreting information and problem solving like a human requires much more than just recognising words, classifying objects and generating speech. It requires a deeper contextual understanding of people, objects and environments – in other words, common sense.

To explore what is currently possible, we recently completed a research project called Common Sense Enhanced Language and Vision (CiViL). We equipped a robot called Euclid with commonsense knowledge as part of a generative AI vision and language system to assist people in preparing recipes. To do this, we had to create commonsense knowledge databases using real-world problem-solving examples enacted by students.

Euclid could explain complicated steps in recipes, give suggestions when things went wrong, and even point people to locations in the kitchen where utensils and tools might typically be found. Yet there were still issues, such as what to do if someone has a bad allergic reaction while cooking. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to handle every possible scenario, yet that’s what true common sense entails.

This fundamental aspect of AI has got somewhat lost in humanoid robots over the years. Generated speech, realistic facial expressions, telemetric controls, even the ability to play games such as “rock paper scissors” are all impressive. But the novelty soon wears off if the robots are not actually capable of doing anything useful on their own.

This isn’t to say that significant progress isn’t being made toward autonomous humanoid robots. There’s impressive work going on into robotic nervous systems to give robots more senses for learning, for instance. It’s just not usually given the same amount of press attention as the big unveilings.

The data deficit

Another key challenge is the lack of real-world data to train AI systems, since online data doesn’t always accurately represent the real-world conditions necessary for training our robots well enough. We have yet to find an effective way of collecting this real-world data in large enough quantities to get good results. However, this may change soon if we can access it from technologies such as Alexa and Meta Ray-Bans.

Nonetheless, the reality is that we’re still perhaps decades away from developing multimodal humanoid robots with advanced social AI that are capable of helping around the house. Maybe in the meantime we’ll be offered robots controlled remotely from a command centre. Will we want them, though?

In the meantime, it’s also more important that we focus our efforts on creating robots for roles that can support people who urgently need help now. Examples would include healthcare, where there are long waiting lists and understaffed hospitals; and education, to offer a way for overanxious or severely ill children to participate in classrooms remotely. We also need better transparency, legislation and publicly available testing, so that everyone can tell fact from fiction and help build public trust for when the robots eventually do arrive. Läs mer…

Vaccinating older people probably did avert some deaths in 2021, but the effects were small. And even those small effects on mortality seem to have dissipated during the booster programme. That’s the conclusion of our new study, published in the European Economic Review.

COVID-related deaths decreased significantly in most of Europe and the US from the middle of 2021. Although this reduction coincided with the rollout of COVID vaccines, it has proved surprisingly difficult to identify the extent to which vaccination contributed to the drop in deaths.

Randomised controlled trials (the gold standard for testing new treatments) suggest COVID vaccination can provide significant protection against serious illness and death relative to unvaccinated people who have not previously been infected with COVID. But there are reasons the effect of vaccination on mortality may be lower when viewed outside of trials.

Early in the programme, there were hopes that vaccination would also prove highly effective in preventing the spread of COVID but it has since become clear that vaccination provides only limited and short-term protection against infection and transmission.

It is also well established that a previous infection provides protection both against reinfection and against serious illness and death in the event of reinfection that is at least as effective as vaccination. Having a previous infection significantly reduces the likelihood of being vaccinated meaning the vaccinated population will include a relatively high proportion of people without protection from prior infection. So even if vaccination provides protection at an individual level, we may still observe population-level mortality rates that are similar for vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.

The effectiveness of vaccination programmes may also be limited by people’s behaviour. For example, there is evidence that vaccinated people who get infected are more likely to have mild symptoms and this may cause them to take fewer precautions than others against spreading infection. As a result, vaccination may sometimes be associated with more rather than less transmission.

Taken together, even if vaccination reduces the risk on an individual basis, it does not necessarily follow that it will reduce deaths at a population level. Existing research reflects this ambiguity with some research finding very significant effects of vaccination on death while other findings conclude there was little or no effect at all.

Our new study attempts to improve our knowledge about the effect of COVID vaccination programmes by estimating the effect of vaccination take up on deaths in care homes. This is a particularly important group to examine. Given that the vast majority of COVID-related deaths occur in the elderly, any effect on deaths is highly likely to be seen in care homes.

COVID vaccines reduced serious illness and deaths, but they did little to stop infection and transmission.
Marc Bruxelle /Alamy Stock Photo

Machine learning used to analyse the data

We examined deaths from COVID in care homes across nearly 150 local authorities in England from the start of the vaccine rollout in December 2020 until after the second booster dose in summer 2022. We tested whether higher rates of vaccination of staff and elderly residents led to fewer deaths both in total and from COVID.

One feature of our research is the use of machine learning (a type of artificial intelligence) to isolate the effect of vaccination from other factors that may also have affected mortality including levels of prior infection as well as demographic, economic and health differences among local authorities.

Machine learning is particularly adept at separating out the effects of a high number of potential explanatory variables, providing much better evidence of when associations represent true causal relationships. In contrast to some other research, we also use a measure of vaccination that takes account of the fact that effectiveness wanes over time.

We found that higher vaccination rates of residents (but not of staff) did indeed lead to fewer deaths, but the effect was relatively small. For example, an increase in the resident vaccination take-up rate of 10% in a local authority caused, on average, a reduction of 1% in the total care home mortality rate. That is equivalent to about 22 fewer deaths per week nationwide.

Of course, any reduction in deaths is welcome. But vaccination does not appear to be the key factor in reducing care home deaths from COVID. We also found that the reduction in deaths was restricted to the initial vaccination rollout.

From September 2021, when the booster vaccination programme started in England, higher vaccination rates of elderly residents do not seem to have led to any reduction in deaths. Based on these results, vaccination is unlikely to have been responsible for the sustained fall in COVID-related deaths.

Why then did Europe and the US experience large reductions in COVID deaths since 2021, even during times when infection rates have soared?

There are two explanations. The first is the growth of variants such as omicron that, although highly infectious, are less deadly than variants responsible for the early waves.

Second, is the rise in the cumulative number of people who gained protection from having had previous infections.

These explanations are consistent with the experience of places such as Hong Kong, New Zealand and Taiwan. All saw relatively low COVID infections and deaths in 2020, meaning only limited levels of natural immunity had been built up. All then experienced high mortality rates during 2022, well after most people in those places had been vaccinated.

For example, the seven-day average mortality rate in Hong Kong reached 40 deaths per million in March 2022, a rate far above the highest peak seen in the US during the whole pandemic despite cumulative vaccination rates at that time being similar.

Even though vaccination probably reduced care home deaths by a small amount in the early rollout period, there is little evidence that the booster programme had any significant effect on COVID-related deaths. Läs mer…

In the beginning, there was just one, unnamed, muse. The blind bard Homer (a poet born around around 850BC) invoked her with the words “Sing, daughter of Zeus” in the first lines of his epic poem, the Odyssey.

Then there were said to be three: Melete (practice), Mneme (memory) and Aoede (song), perhaps embodying the basic creative process of early humanity. Eventually, nine muses were identified, covering every branch of the arts, in the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s introduction to Theogony, his epic poem about mythical stories and characters (circa 730–700BC). Hesiod, formerly an illiterate shepherd, claimed that he was inspired to write the poem when a beautiful goddess whispered the story in his ear.

There were muses specifically for comedy, tragedy and even erotica. The oldest was Calliope, mother of the legendary musician Orpheus. Euterpe was the muse of music. Urania guided the scientists. Terpsichore taught dance.

The muses promised fame and fortune to artists who followed them, but are rarely mentioned by name in the prologues and prefaces of artworks today.

A timeline of the muses

Originally characterised as singing and dancing goddesses guarding a sacred spring, evidence for the muses is found in writing by some of the earliest known authors.

Hesiod and the Muse by Gustave Moreau (1891).
Musée d’Orsay

Yet, the muses existed long before reading and writing. It was only later that they were conscripted as the mascots of writers, with some ancient mosaics showing pens and parchment superimposed on their original images. Following their assimilation from the oral tradition into cheerleaders of literacy, the muses are seen waving pens and quills, scrolls and manuscripts in ancient artworks.

Written storytelling about the muses started in the matriarchal period of prehistory, shifting to patriarchy in approximately 3,000BC, in Ovid’s story of the god Apollo fashioning himself the first laurel wreath. This crown of leaves, which supposedly signified his genius, is seen in the myth of Daphne, who turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo’s unwanted advances.

Written by Ovid in Metamorphoses, this picturesque tale may have been a metaphor for the switch from female to male authority. Legend has it that Apollo prevented his muse priestess from brewing, imbibing or smoking laurel leaves, which have a mild narcotic property.

It wasn’t just fanciful poets in the muse’s congregation – philosophers kept the faith too. In approximately 370BC, Socrates classed “possession” by the muses as a form of divine madness like drunkenness, eroticism or dreaming: “He who, having no touch of the muses’ madness in his soul, thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted.”

Clio, Euterpe and Thalia, by Eustache Le Sueur (1652–1655).
Louvre Museum

English poet and soldier Robert Graves (1895-1985) agreed, writing in 1948 that his:

‘Inspiration’ was the breathing-in by the poet of fumes from an intoxicating cauldron, the Awen of the cauldron of Cerridwen, containing probably a mash of barley, acorns, honey, bull’s blood and such sacred herbs as ivy, hellebore and laurel as at Delphi.

Changing times

These original practices of using drink or drugs to inspire art are still in use around the world today. The muses may hold a pen in one hand and a smoke, or steaming mug, in the other – herbal remedies continue to be efficacious for writer’s block.

In the Elizabethan period, when a poet’s relationship with the muses was perceived as directly proportionate to their success in romance, loving attention was paid to their invocation in rhythm and rhyme. But post-Enlightenment, it was no longer considered right for writers to invoke a supernatural mentor for literary endeavours. Modern men were influenced by reason and rationality, rather than a deity. Then it was more likely that a dead bard or scene from nature was deemed an appropriate source of inspiration.

The nine muses on a Roman sarcophagus (second century AD).
Louvre Museum, CC BY-SA

Though writing remained a ritualistic practice, and its mechanisms sometimes mystical, the desk no longer doubled as an altar at which the author worshipped.

Yet writers still often claim “the muse is with me” at moments when the words flow magically. Her voice can be heard in the modern Interval with Erato by Scott Cairns (2015), which name checks the ancient overseer of love poetry:

That’s what I like best about you, Erato sighed in bed, that’s why you’ve become one of my favourites and why you will always be so.

For the most part, the muses are missed off the agenda by both the microscope-gazers and the navel-gazers, these days. However, Plato did insist in his dialogue Phaedrus (370BC) that most people are eu amousoi (εὖ ἄμουσοι) an ancient Greek expression that means “happily without the muses”.

Contemporary theories of creativity do not often mention divine inspiration. We no longer like the idea that the best stories are given to a few fated writers by God, that great plots and characters are bestowed on favoured authors by goddesses. But the answer to that common question all writers are asked – “where do you get your ideas from?” – still seems more mystic, less mathematic and as much supernatural as subconscious.

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