Measles infections can be extremely serious. So far in 2025, 14% of the people who got measles had to be hospitalized. Last year, that number was 40%. Measles can damage the lungs and immune system, and also inflict permanent brain damage. Three in 1,000 people who get the disease die. But because measles vaccination programs in the U.S. over the past 60 years have been highly successful, few Americans under 50 have experienced measles directly, making it easy to think of the infection as a mere childhood rash with fever.
When the measles virus infects a person, it binds to specific proteins on the surface of cells. It then inserts its genome and replicates, destroying the cells in the process. This first happens in the upper respiratory tract and the lungs, where the virus can damage the person’s ability to breathe well. In both places, the virus also infects immune cells that carry it to the lymph nodes, and from there, throughout the body.
Measles can wipe out immune cells’ ability to recognize pathogens.
What generally lands people with measles in the hospital is the disease’s effects on the lungs. As the virus destroys lung cells, patients can develop viral pneumonia, which is characterized by severe coughing and difficulty breathing. Measles pneumonia afflicts about 1 in 20 children who get measles and is the most common cause of death from measles in young children.
An especially alarming but still poorly understood effect of measles infection is that it can reduce the immune system’s ability to recognize pathogens it has previously encountered. Researchers had long suspected that children who get the measles vaccine also tend to have better immunity to other diseases, but they were not sure why. A study published in 2019 found that having a measles infection destroyed between 11% and 75% of their antibodies, leaving them vulnerable to many of the infections to which they previously had immunity. This effect, called immune amnesia, lasts until people are reinfected or revaccinated against each disease their immune system forgot.
There is still much to learn about the measles virus. For example, researchers are exploring antibody therapies to treat severe measles. However, even if such treatments work, the best way to prevent the serious effects of measles is to avoid infection by getting vaccinated.
Peter Kasson receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Swedish Research Council for research on other emerging viruses.
On March 27, 2025, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced plans to dramatically transform the department. HHS is the umbrella agency responsible for pandemic preparedness, biomedical research, food safety and many other health-related activities.
In a video posted that afternoon, Kennedy said the cuts and reorganization to HHS aim to “streamline our agency” and “radically improve our quality of service” by eliminating rampant waste and inefficiency. “No American is going to be left behind,” the health secretary told the nation.
Combined with previous reductions, these cuts may achieve some limited short-term savings. However, the proposed changes dramatically alter U.S. health policy and research, and they may endanger important benefits and protections for many Americans. They may also have severe consequences for scientific progress. And as some policy experts have suggested, the poorly targeted cuts may increase inefficiencies and waste down the line.
From a policy perspective, the changes initiated at HHS by the second-term Trump administration are far-reaching. They involve both staffing cuts and substantial reorganization.
Prior to the March 27 announcement, the administration had already cut thousands of positions from HHS by letting go probationary employees and offering buyouts for employees to voluntarily leave.
Now, HHS is slated to lose another 10,000 workers. The latest cuts focus most heavily on a handful of agencies. The FDA will lose an additional 3,500 employees, and the NIH will lose 1,200. The CDC, where cuts are steepest, will lose 2,400 positions.
Along with these cuts comes a major reorganization that will eliminate 13 out of 28 offices and agencies, close five of the 10 regional offices, reshuffle existing divisions and establish a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America.
The plan to restructure HHS will trim its budget by 0.1%.
In his announcement, the health secretary highlighted cuts to HHS support functions, such as information technology and human resources, as a way to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies. But scaling down and reorganizing these capacities will inevitably have implications for how well HHS employees will be able to fulfill their duties – at least temporarily. Kennedy acknowledged this as a “painful period” for HHS.
However, large-scale reductions and reorganizations inevitably lead to more systemic disruptions, delays and denials. It seems implausible that Americans seeking access to health care, help with HIV prevention or early education benefits such as Head Start, which are also administered by HHS, will not be affected. This is particularly the case when conceived rapidly and without transparent long-term planning.
These new cuts are also further exacerbated by the administration’s previous slashes to public health funding for state and local governments. Given the crucial functions of HHS – from health coverage for vulnerable populations to pandemic preparedness and response – the American Public Health Association predicts the cuts will result in a rise in rates of disease and death.
Already, previous cuts at the FDA – the agency responsible for safe foods and drugs – have led to delays in product reviews.
The HHS restructuring should be viewed in a broader context. Since coming to office, the Trump administration has aggressively sought to reshape the U.S. public health agenda. This has included vast cuts to research funding as well as funding for state and local governments. The most recent cuts at HHS fit into the mold of rolling back protections and reshaping science.
The HHS reorganization also revamps two bodies within HHS, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, that are instrumental in improving U.S. health care and providing policy research. This change further diminishes the likelihood that health policy will be based on scientific evidence and raises the risk for more politicized decision-making about health.
More cuts are likely still to come. Medicaid, the program providing health coverage for low-income Americans, will be a particular target. The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution on Feb. 25 that allows up to $880 billion in cuts to the program.
All told, plans already announced and those expected to emerge in the future dramatically alter U.S. health policy and roll back substantial protections for Americans.
A vision for deregulation
Regulation has emerged as the most prolific source of policymaking over the last five decades, particularly for health policy. Given its vast responsibilities, HHS is one of the federal government’s most prolific regulators. Vast cuts to the HHS workforce will likely curtail this capability, resulting in fewer regulatory protections for Americans.
At the same time, with fewer experienced administrators on staff, industry influence over regulatory decisions will likely only grow stronger. HHS will simply lack the substance and procedural expertise to act independently. More industry influence and fewer independent regulators to counter it will also further reduce attention to disparities and underserved populations.
Ultimately, the Trump administration’s efforts may lead to a vastly different federal health policy – with fewer benefits, services and protections – than what Americans have become accustomed to in modern times.
Dr. Simon F. Haeder has previously received funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) .
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rochelle Walensky, Bayer Fellow in Health and Biotech, American Academy in Berlin, Senior Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School
This delay comes at a time when the population of aging adults is rising dramatically. By 2050, the number of adults over 85 is expected to triple, which will intensify the strain on an already stretched health care system. We wrote about this worsening challenge and its implications for the health care workforce in a January 2025 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Even before the pandemic, 80% of U.S. counties lacked a single infectious disease physician. Before going to the CDC, I – Dr. Walensky – was chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. When COVID-19 hit our hospitals, we were in desperate need of more infectious disease expertise. I was just one of them.
At the local level, these infectious disease-trained subspecialists provide essential services when it comes to preventing and controlling transmissible outbreaks, carrying out diagnostic testing, developing treatment guidelines, informing hospital capacity planning and offering resources for community outreach. Each of these experts plays a vital role at the bedside and in systems management toward effective clinical, hospital and community responses to infectious disease outbreaks.
Now, Americans across all regions, specialties and socioeconomic backgrounds are experiencing that decline firsthand or personally.
The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects a national shortage of 140,000 physicians by 2036, with that shortfall spanning multiple specialties, including primary care, obstetrics, cardiology and geriatrics.
However, some geographic areas in the country – especially some of those with the poorest health – are disproportionately affected. The brunt of the effect will be felt in rural areas: An estimated 56% shortage is predicted in nonmetro areas, versus only 6% in metro areas.
States such as Massachusetts, New York and Maryland boast the highest density of physicians per 100,000 people, while states such as Idaho, Mississippi and Oklahoma rank among those with the lowest. And even in states with the highest physician density, demand may still overwhelm access.
Although doctor shortages do not necessarily cause poor health outcomes, regions with fewer physicians tend to have lower life expectancy. The mean life expectancy in Mississippi is six years lower than that of Hawaii and more than four years below the national average. This underscores the substantial differences in health outcomes depending on where you live in the U.S.
Notably, areas with fewer doctors also see higher rates of chronic conditions such as chronic pulmonary disease, diabetes and poor mental health. This crisis is further exacerbated by the aging baby boomer population, which places increasing demand on an already strained health care system due to rising rates – especially among those over 85 – of multiple chronic diseases, complex health care needs and the concurrent use of multiple medications.
Rural areas have always had lower access to medical care compared with urban centers, and this divide could get far worse with the looming physician shortage. Chalabala/iStock via Getty Images Plus
How the US reached this point
Some of these workforce challenges stem from the unintended consequences of policy changes that were originally aimed at improving the rigor of medical education or curtailing a once-anticipated physician glut.
For example, the 1910 Flexner Report was commissioned to restructure American medical education with the goals of standardizing curricula and improving quality. While the report succeeded at those goals, it was shortsighted in important ways. For instance, it recommended closing rather than strengthening 89 of the 155 existing medical schools at the time. This created medical school deserts that persist in some U.S. regions to this day.
Decades after the Flexner Report, in 1980, policymakers anticipated a physician oversupply based on medical school enrollment projections and government investments in the medical workforce. In response, funding constraints were introduced by Congress to limit residency and fellowship training slots available after medical school.
But by the early 2000s, discussions shifted to concerns about physician shortages. Despite the calls for reforms to address the issues more than a decade ago, the funding and training constraints have remained largely unchanged. These have created a persistent bottleneck in postgraduate medical training that requires acts of Congress to reverse.
Primary care doctors provide continuity for patients; without them, people tend to experience more complex health care needs and poorer outcomes.
Forces shaping the physician bottleneck
In the wake of the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, states with restrictive abortion policies are now facing an emerging and troubling workforce challenge: It may get more difficult to recruit and retain tomorrow’s medical school grads.
Research surveys suggest that 82% of future physicians, not just obstetricians, prefer to train and work in states that uphold abortion access. While it may seem obvious that obstetricians would want to avoid the increasing liabilities associated with the Dobbs decision, another point is less obvious: Most medical trainees are between the ages of 25 and 35, prime childbearing years, and may themselves want access to a full range of obstetric care.
And given that 20% of physicians are married to other physicians and an additional 25% to other health professionals, marriage within the health care workforce may also play a substantial role. A physician choosing not to practice in one of the 14 states with limited abortion access, many of which already rank among the poorest in health outcomes and lowest in physician densities, may not only take their expertise but also their partner’s elsewhere.
Shifting the trajectory
The doctor shortage requires a combination of solutions, starting with addressing the high cost of medical education and training. Medical school enrollment has increased by only 10% over the past decade, far insufficient to address both the shortage today and the projected growth of the aging population needing care.
In addition, many students carry large amounts of debt, which frequently limits who can pursue the profession. And existing scholarship and compensation programs have been only modestly effective in incentivizing providers to work in high-need areas.
In our New England Journal of Medicine report, we laid out several specific strategies that could help address the shortages and the potential workforce crisis. For instance:
Rather than the traditional medical education model – four years of broad medical training followed by three to seven years of residency – medical schools could offer more specialized training pathways. These streamlined programs would focus on the skills needed for specific medical specialties, potentially reducing training duration and costs.
Reforming physician compensation could also help address imbalances in the health care system. Specialists and subspecialists typically earn substantially more than primary care doctors, despite the high demand for primary care. Raising primary care salaries and offering incentives, such as student loan forgiveness for physicians in high-need areas, could encourage more doctors to practice where they are needed most.
Additionally, addressing physician burnout is crucial, particularly in primary care, where administrative burdens such as billing and charting contribute to stress and attrition. Reducing these burdens, potentially through novel AI-driven solutions, could allow doctors to focus more on patient care and less on paperwork.
These are just an assortment of strategies we propose, and time is of the essence. One thing is certain: The U.S. urgently needs more doctors, and everyone’s health depends on it.
Dr Rochelle P. Walensky is the Bayer Fellow in Health and Biotech, American Academy in Berlin. She reported receiving personal fees from Madryn Asset Management for serving as a senior policy advisor, Consonance Capital for serving as a senior advisory board member, and Doris Duke Foundation for serving as a trustee; consulting fees from Infectious Diseases Society of America; and nonfinancial support from The Carter Center for being a member of the board of directors outside the submitted work.
Nicole McCann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Prisoners stand in a cell as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025.AP Photo/Alex Brandon
A federal appeals court on March 26, 2025, upheld a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants, including alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
The court was skeptical of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to defend the deportations. The act, passed in 1798, gives the president the power to detain and remove people from the United States in times of war.
Those who are challenging Trump’s actions in court say the administration has violated constitutional principles of due process. That’s because it gave the migrants no opportunity to refute the government’s claims that they were gang members.
But what is due process? And how does the government balance this important right against national security?
As a constitutional law professor who studies government institutions, I recognize the delicate balance government must strike in protecting civil rights and liberties while allowing presidential administrations to preserve national security and foreign policy interests.
Ultimately, the U.S. Constitution’s framers left it to the courts to determine this balance.
Due process explained
The phrase “due process of law” goes back to at least 1215. That’s when England’s Magna Carta established the principle that government is not above the law.
This principle guided the framers of the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment and 14th Amendment, for example, prohibit federal and state governments from depriving people of their “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Government officials see the limits of their power from one lens. People affected by the exercise of that power view it differently.
To combat this problem, the Constitution’s framers placed the judiciary in charge of determining what due process means and when people’s due process rights have been violated.
Court decisions on the issue traditionally weigh the government’s interests in taking specific actions against claims that those actions violate people’s civil rights and liberties.
Even when the law authorizes the president to detain people, historically the Supreme Court has held that those people should receive notice of the reason for their detention, and they should have a fair opportunity to rebut the government’s claims.
One of the important considerations in legal analysis of the procedures the government must follow when depriving people of their liberty is the risk that the government will make a mistake in its decision-making.
For example, some representatives of the deported Venezuelan migrants argue that they have been falsely accused of having ties to Tren de Aragua based on their country of origin and tattoos. They claim that without more investigation, including an opportunity for the migrants to present their evidence refuting the government’s claims, there is a large risk that government will mistakenly deport people.
When can the president avoid due process?
In some cases, the president can skirt traditional due process considerations in pursuit of broader policy concerns.
As put by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in his initial order blocking the deportations, the president’s action in this area implicate “a host of complicated legal issues, including fundamental and sensitive questions about the often-circumscribed extent of judicial power in matters of foreign policy and national security.”
Before Trump took executive action using the Alien Enemies Act, the measure had only been used three times – all during times of war.
The act was part of a series of four laws passed in 1798 known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws, among other things, gave the president the power to deport any noncitizen thought to be dangerous.
A woman holds a sign during a rally on March 18, 2025, in Caracas, Venezuela, to protest the deportation from the U.S. of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang, who were transferred to an El Salvador prison. AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
President Thomas Jefferson allowed most of the acts to expire. But Jefferson and subsequent presidents kept in place the provisions that empowered the president to detain or deport noncitizens in times of war, “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by foreign powers.
Today, the law authorizes the president to apprehend and remove people over the age of 14 that the administration determines to be “alien enemies.” However, it places procedural requirements on the president.
Notably, the president’s ability to act requires a declared war against or an “invasion or predatory excursion” by a foreign nation. In such an event, the president must issue a proclamation saying he plans on using the act against perceived enemies.
To justify the Venezuelan deportations, Trump issued a proclamation on March 15 claiming Tren de Aragua is perpetrating and threatening an invasion against the U.S.
But the act also says people considered alien enemies must be given reasonable time to settle their affairs and voluntarily depart from the country. And it gives the courts power to regulate whether such persons even fall within the definition of “alien enemies.”
The Venezuelan migrants claim Trump has violated these parts of the act.
The current fight
This is where things become complicated.
All parties in the case acknowledge that the Alien Enemies Act grants the president authority to act. However, the argument is whether the government has given people the opportunity to challenge the government’s decision to classify them as “alien enemies.”
His administration argues that it doesn’t have to tell migrants it considers them alien enemies. And the administration says it’s not required to give them time to ask the courts to step in before they are deported.
In a March 24 hearing on the issue, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Patricia A. Millet noted that during World War II, even the “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.”
The dispute has prompted international questions about the legality of the U.S. government’s deportation procedures and its treatment of the migrants.
And Democratic members of Congress have called for an investigation into the administration’s deportation practices.
The case will most likely head to the Supreme Court to determine what due process means and when the president can act in the name of national security to limit people’s due process rights. That’s just as the framers of the Constitution intended.
Jennifer L. Selin has received funding and/or support for her research on the executive branch from the Administrative Conference of the United States. The views in this piece are those of the author and do not represent the position of the Administrative Conference or the federal government.
One of the most powerful objects in the universe is a radio quasar – a spinning black hole spraying out highly energetic particles. Come too close to one, and you’d get sucked in by its gravitational pull, or burn up from the intense heat surrounding it. But ironically, studying black holes and their jets can give researchers insight into where potentially habitable worlds might be in the universe.
As an astrophysicist, I’ve spent two decades modeling how black holes spin, how that creates jets, and how they affect the environment of space around them.
What are black holes?
Black holes are massive, astrophysical objects that use gravity to pull surrounding objects into them. Active black holes have a pancake-shaped structure around them called an accretion disk, which contains hot, electrically charged gas.
The plasma that makes up the accretion disk comes from farther out in the galaxy. When two galaxies collide and merge, gas is funneled into the central region of that merger. Some of that gas ends up getting close to the newly merged black hole and forms the accretion disk.
Black holes and their disks can rotate, and when they do, they drag space and time with them – a concept that’s mind-boggling and very hard to grasp conceptually. But black holes are important to study because they produce enormous amounts of energy that can influence galaxies.
How energetic a black hole is depends on different factors, such as the mass of the black hole, whether it rotates rapidly, and whether lots of material falls onto it. Mergers fuel the most energetic black holes, but not all black holes are fed by gas from a merger. In spiral galaxies, for example, less gas tends to fall into the center, and the central black hole tends to have less energy.
One of the ways they generate energy is through what scientists call “jets” of highly energetic particles. A black hole can pull in magnetic fields and energetic particles surrounding it, and then as the black hole rotates, the magnetic fields twist into a jet that sprays out highly energetic particles.
Magnetic fields twist around the black hole as it rotates to store energy – kind of like when you pull and twist a rubber band. When you release the rubber band, it snaps forward. Similarly, the magnetic fields release their energy by producing these jets.
The accretion disk around a black hole can form a jet of hot, energetic particles surrounded by magnetic field lines. NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI), CC BY
These jets can speed up or suppress the formation of stars in a galaxy, depending on how the energy is released into the black hole’s host galaxy.
Rotating black holes
Some black holes, however, rotate in a different direction than the accretion disk around them. This phenomenon is called counterrotation, and some studies my colleagues and I have conducted suggest that it’s a key feature governing the behavior of one of the most powerful kinds of objects in the universe: the radio quasar.
You can imagine the black hole as a rotating sphere, and the accretion disk as a disk with a hole in the center. The black hole sits in that center hole and rotates one way, while the accretion disk rotates the other way.
This counterrotation forces the black hole to spin down and eventually up again in the other direction, called corotation. Imagine a basketball that spins one way, but you keep tapping it to rotate in the other. The tapping will spin the basketball down. If you continue to tap in the opposite direction, it will eventually spin up and rotate in the other direction. The accretion disk does the same thing.
Since the jets tap into the black hole’s rotational energy, they are powerful only when the black hole is spinning rapidly. The change from counterrotation to corotation takes at least 100 million years. Many initially counterrotating black holes take billions of years to become rapidly spinning corotating black holes.
So, these black holes would produce powerful jets both early and later in their lifetimes, with an interlude in the middle where the jets are either weak or nonexistent.
When the black hole spins in counterrotation with respect to its accretion disk, that motion produces strong jets that push molecules in the surrounding gas close together, which leads to the formation of stars.
But later, in corotation, the jet tilts. This tilt makes it so that the jet impinges directly on the gas, heating it up and inhibiting star formation. In addition to that, the jet also sprays X-rays across the galaxy. Cosmic X-rays are bad for life because they can harm organic tissue.
For life to thrive, it most likely needs a planet with a habitable ecosystem, and clouds of hot gas saturated with X-rays don’t contain such planets. So, astronomers can instead look for galaxies without a tilted jet coming from its black hole. This idea is key to understanding where intelligence could potentially have emerged and matured in the universe.
Black holes as a guide
By early 2022, I had built a black hole model to use as a guide. It could point out environments with the right kind of black holes to produce the greatest number of planets without spraying them with X-rays. Life in such environments could emerge to its full potential.
Looking at black holes and their role in star formation could help scientists predict when and where life was most likely to form.
Where are such conditions present? The answer is low-density environments where galaxies had merged about 11 billion years ago.
These environments had black holes whose powerful jets enhanced the rate of star formation, but they never experienced a bout of tilted jets in corotation. In short, my model suggested that theoretically, the most advanced extraterrestrial civilization would have likely emerged on the cosmic scene far away and billions of years ago.
David Garofalo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Why do dogs love to play with trash? – Sarah G٫ age 11٫ Seguin٫ Texas
When I think about why dogs do something, I try to imagine what motivates them. What does a dog get out of playing with trash? As a veterinarian and a professor who teaches college students about companion animals, I believe there’s an easy answer: Garbage smells delicious and tastes good to dogs.
Dogs have an amazing sense of smell. They have 300 million receptors for smell in their noses, while humans have only 6 million. People can make use of this sniffing ability to train dogs to detect illegal drugs, explosives and endangered species, and to help locate people lost in the woods.
While you might not like how your trash smells, to your dog it is an appealing buffet brimming with apple cores, banana peels, meat scraps and stale bread. Even used napkins and paper towels are tempting to dogs, when they are smeared with and carry the smell of yesterday’s lunch.
Because dogs can find trace amounts of explosives or a person buried under 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow after an avalanche, they are certainly capable of locating last night’s pizza crust and chicken bones in the kitchen garbage can.
Sometimes it’s hard to see what the attraction is. My Australian cattle dog mix, Sparky, loves to eat used tissues – gross, right?
Even empty cans smell inviting to dogs. Trash cans in kitchens and bathrooms are often at their nose level, too, making for easy access. Add to that the fact that if the dog got into the garbage once and found something tasty, they will likely keep searching with the hope of being rewarded again.
A Colombian police officer uses a drug-sniffing dog to search packages of flowers prior to export at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota on Feb. 5, 2025. Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images
Thrill of the hunt
Searching and digging around for food is natural for dogs because it provides some of the thrill of the hunt, even if they just ate and aren’t hungry.
The most successful prehistoric dogs ate the bones and scraps that humans left behind more than 10,000 years ago. Hanging around humans and their garbage was a way they could get plenty to eat. Even your pup today has some of those same old searching instincts.
While our trash has changed from the days of hunting and gathering, the discarded paper napkins, plastic wrappers and food scraps we throw away all still smell like food to dogs. And this scavenging behavior is still hardwired in our pampered pets. Although it may look to us like they’re playing, our dogs’ sniffing out and tearing things up from the trash and tossing them around mimics what their ancestors did when they tugged on and tore up an animal carcass they had found.
Many people take advantage of this instinct and use “snuffle mats” – cloth or paper where food is hidden – or puzzle feeding toys to keep their pups’ minds active. Having to hunt for and find their food helps them use their noses and sharpens their skills.
Annoying or even dangerous
While spreading trash all over the home may be natural for dogs, cleaning it up is no fun for the people they live with. And if your dog pokes its nose in a garbage can, it could be in danger. Eating plastic bags, string, chicken bones, chemicals or rotten food can cause blockages, diarrhea and poisoning. Commonly referred to as “garbage gut,” garbage poisoning can be life-threatening.
I’ve treated dogs that cut their tongues and mouths on cans or broken glass. I once performed surgery to remove a corncob from the intestines of a dog that had eaten it a month earlier. He was certainly relieved when he woke up.
How can you keep your dogs away from the trash?
It can be hard to train a dog to leave garbage alone, especially if they have found a tasty morsel or two by raiding the trash can in the past. I recommend that you invest in a garbage can with a lid closed by a latch that they can’t open. If that fails, you can put garbage – especially food scraps – out of reach in a closet, cupboard or behind a closed door.
My trash cans are all behind closed doors, and the bathroom doors are always shut, which also keeps my cat, Penny, from unrolling the toilet tissue. But that’s another story. Our kitchen trash is in a latched cupboard.
No one knows exactly what goes through dogs’ minds. And yet looking at what motivates your canine companion and how dog behaviors have evolved may help explain why these animals do the things they do.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Nancy Dreschel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Becky Alexis-Martin, Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford
Keir Starmer aboard one of the UK’s Vanguard class submarines.CC BY-NC-ND
Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently boarded one of the UK’s four nuclear-armed submarines for a photo call as part of his attempts to demonstrate the UK’s defence capabilities as tensions with Russia continue.
However, Starmer faces a problem. The submarine, and the rest of the UK’s nuclear fleet, is heavily reliant on the US as an operating partner. And at a time when the US becomes an increasingly unreliable partner under the leadership of an entirely transactional president, this is not ideal. The US can, if it chooses, effectively switch off the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
British and US nuclear history is irrevocably interwoven. The US and UK cooperated on the Manhattan project, under the 1943 Quebec agreements and the 1944 Hyde Park aide memoire. This work generated the world’s first nuclear weapons, which were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
It also led to the first rupture. In 1946, the US classified UK citizens as “foreign” and prevented them from engaging in secret nuclear work. Collaboration with the UK immediately ceased.
The UK decided to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons. The successful detonation of the “Grapple Y” hydrogen bomb in April 1958 cemented its position as a thermonuclear power.
In the meantime, however, Russia’s launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 had demonstrated the lethal reach of Soviet nuclear technology. This brought the US and UK back together as nuclear partners.
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Talks on how to counter the Russian threat became the foundation of an atomic partnership that endures to the present day. This mutual defence agreement, signed in 1958, has provided the UK with affordable access to the latest nuclear technology and a reliable western ally. The treaty has been amended and adapted over time to reflect changes in the US-UK working relationship and the two are now so entangled that it is very hard to leave the co-dependent relationship.
Both sides have benefited from security and protection, especially during the cold war. However, Trump’s new “special relationship” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin has reconfigured the global order of geopolitics.
Serious concerns are now being raised about the UK’s nuclear capacity, given the unpredictability and potential unreliability of the new US administration. Trump could ignore or threaten to terminate the agreement in a show of power or contempt.
The UK’s nuclear subs
The UK’s Trident nuclear deterrence programme consists of four Vanguard nuclear-powered and armed submarines. The UK has some autonomy, as it is operationally independent and controls the decision to launch.
However, it remains dependent on the US because the nuclear technologies at the heart of the Trident system are US designed and leased by Lockheed Martin – and there is no suitable alternative. The Trident system therefore relies on the US for support and maintenance.
The UK is currently in the process of upgrading the current system. But its options seem limited. If the US were to renege on its commitments, the UK would either have to produce its own weapons domestically, collaborate with France or Europe or disarm. Each scenario creates new issues for the UK. Manufacturing nuclear weapons from scratch in the UK, for example, would be a costly and protracted activity.
Technical collaboration with France seems the most plausible back-up option at the moment. The two countries already have a nuclear collaboration treaty in place. France has taken a similar submarine-based approach to deterrence as the UK and French president Emmanuel Macron has suggested its deterrent could be used to protect other European countries. Another alternative would be to spread the cost across Europe and create a European deterrence – but both strategies just re-embed the UK’s current nuclear reliance.
While these weapons may deter a hostile nuclear strike, they have failed to prevent broader acts of aggression. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for 80 years. Perhaps it is time to completely and permanently unshackle the UK from nuclear deterrence, and consider alternative forms of defence.
The UK’s nuclear arsenal is expensive to maintain. The cost of replacing Trident is £205 billion. In 2023, the Ministry of Defence reported that the anticipated costs for supporting the nuclear deterrent would exceed its budget by £7.9 billion over the next ten years. This funding could be channelled into more pressing security threats, such as cybersecurity, terrorism or climate change.
Nuclear weapons will become strategically redundant if the UK cannot act independently. As Nato and the US dominate the global nuclear stage, the UK’s capacity to respond has become contested. The time has come to decide whether the US is really our friend – or a new foe.
Becky Alexis-Martin 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.
Donald Trump is calling April 2 2025 “Liberation Day”. For the rest of the world it will just be the day when they discover the details of his latest round of tariffs.
Those tariffs have already become the stand out economic feature of Trump’s second term in the White House. And frankly, it’s been hard to keep track.
There have been tariffs imposed and then lifted, tariffs with exemptions, tariffs on metal and tariffs on wood. Now Trump has announced a 25% tariff on all imported cars to take effect on April 2, when he also plans to reveal his “reciprocal tariffs” on other trading partners.
Trump thinks the US has been “ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth”. He also counts “tariff” as his favourite word, and a tool which is “”very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want”.
Whether or not the president gets everything he wants remains to be seen. But the frequent changes in tariff policies over the past few weeks have definitely created uncertainty in trade with the US, which research shows can be harmful in itself.
And the evidence clearly shows that the reasons for the US trade deficit are more to do with domestic issues such as productivity and fiscal discipline than international trade.
So what are the possible outcomes if Trump continues to pursue this policy?
The worst case
Our analysis shows that in the worst-case scenario, non-reciprocated tariffs on Canada and Mexico could result in a significant fall in GDP for all three countries. Canada would be the worst affected (a dip of 16.5%) followed by Mexico (6.6%). GDP in the US would fall by 0.19%.
Canada is particularly dependent on selling its oil and gas – and the US is heavily reliant on its northern neighbour for its fuel supply. In 2024, total trade between the two nations reached US$762.1 billion (£589 billion).
The impact on Mexico would also be devastating. Over 40% of the country’s GDP is derived from exports – and 80% of those exports go to the US.
High tariffs and subsequent retaliations would quickly reduce the confidence of companies on both sides. Costs passed on to consumers would reduce demand and then profits, forming a vicious cycle of economic recession. Trade protectionism could then rise further, potentially even turning a recession into a depression
Middle ground
We also found that even if the economic effects of tariffs were less severe, no nation involved would manage to achieve GDP growth. And Canada and Mexico would still suffer the most.
In this situation, some kind of stalemate could emerge, where tariffs lead to rising inflation, reducing the political appetite for escalation. Trade friction would likely continue until 2026, when a renegotiation of the trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada is due to take place.
Best case
Even under the best-case scenario, with reduced economic impact, GDP for all three countries still falls. Put simply, imposing tariffs creates no winners.
Since the tariff has been seen as a bargaining chip, the best option for Canada and Mexico will be to enter trade negotiations with the US, aiming for a balanced trade policy that is beneficial to all parties.
In the meantime, they should cooperate with other economies affected by US tariffs – such as the EU and China – in the hope that this encourages Trump to make concessions.
All three countries could then revert to their original low-tariff levels before the trade war. This constitutes the optimal scenario within our projected framework – and could be what happens eventually.
US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has said that Trump’s second favourite word is “reciprocal”. If that’s true, then it is possible that the Trump administration has the overall intention of cooling down the intensity of this trade war ahead of negotiating a new version of its trade deal with Canada and Mexico – and a new one with China too.
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.
Stimming – short for “self-stimulatory behaviour” – is a form of self-soothing commonly seen in autistic people. It can involve repetitive movements, sounds, or actions and is commonly regarded in medical literature as part of “rigid and repetitive behaviour”.
This type of framing tends to cast stimming in a negative light, leading health professionals, teachers and even parents to try to stop it. But stimming is a vital self-protective strategy for autistic people, and suppressing it can have serious consequences.
While stimming isn’t unique to autism, autistic people tend to stim more frequently and sometimes in more noticeable ways. It often involves physical movements such as hand-flapping, rocking, spinning or tiptoeing. Many autistic people also use different objects in repetitive ways, such as lining them up in patterns or keeping their hands busy with everyday items or stim toys.
But stimming goes beyond movement – it can involve any of the senses. Some people stim through sound, repeating words or phrases because they are satisfying to say or hear. Others engage in “scripting,” like having conversations that follow a set pattern or re-watching favourite films for the comfort of predictability. Oral stims, such as chewing on pens, clothing or “chewllery” are also common.
When considered in this broader sense, many people – autistic or not – have at least one form of stimming. Yet autistic children are often encouraged to stop theirs, with alternatives like keeping their hands in their pockets suggested instead. These substitutes don’t offer the same sensory input, however, and can make self-regulation more difficult.
Many autistic adults report having lost their natural stims over time. This is either through conscious suppression or because they were conditioned to stop in childhood. Some still suppress stimming out of fear of negative reactions from others, despite it being beneficial to their wellbeing. There is also evidence that some autistic people are discouraged from stimming in the workplace.
Masking
The exact mechanisms behind stimming aren’t fully understood yet. But it is widely acknowledged that it provides soothing sensory input, helping autistic people cope with overwhelming environments. Suppressing stimming is uncomfortable and is one aspect of “masking”, which is the conscious or unconscious act of not doing natural autistic traits to avoid negative social consequences.
Masking is particularly common among autistic women and has been linked to increased anxiety, burnout and even suicide. It can also affect education, work, relationships and overall quality of life.
It’s crucial for society – especially parents, teachers and employers – to become more accepting of stimming. Research shows that greater understanding leads to greater acceptance.
The only instances where intervention might be necessary are when stimming is self-injurious or poses a risk to others, in which case a safer alternative stim should be encouraged. Otherwise, the best response is simple – let people stim freely. And if you’re autistic, research shows you can use it to bond with other autistic people.
So, if you see an autistic child or adult stimming, there’s no need to comment or intervene. My mum used to say that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” – that principle that applies here too.
Aimee Grant receives funding from receives funding from UKRI, the Wellcome Trust and the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute. She is a non-executive director of Disability Wales.
Inequality – between the rich and poor or between the powerful and the weak – is the main factor stalling action on environmental problems including biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change, according to British environmentalist Tony Juniper.
In his new book, Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet, he argues that “if we want to build a secure future, both environmental priorities and social justice must be pursued together”. Much of this is about how decisions are made: “Disadvantaged groups rarely have a say, while those deciding on policy continue to comprise a narrow social segment.”
It is interesting to see Juniper’s views on the topic of a just transition, given his decades of experience. Juniper has served as the executive director of environmental charity Friends of the Earth, he was a Green party parliamentary candidate in the 2011 general election and previously led The Wildlife Trusts. He is currently chair of Natural England, the official government organisation working for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment.
His views on this subject certainly matter. His key message that social justice is at the heart of solving environmental problems helps to explain why we have collectively failed to address these.
This injustice is an issue that has been raised for decades by those most affected by environmental issues, those who work in the environment sector and academics like me who focus on environmental justice.
The UK environment sector, for example, is notoriously one of the least diverse, with only 3.5% of those working in environmental jobs identifying as an ethnic minority. In addition, the climate change movement is sometimes portrayed by the media as a middle-class preoccupation. Research shows a tendency for mainstream media to position environmentalism as a position of the wealthy. That’s reflected by the use of distancing terminology such as “middle-class tree huggers”.
Levels of climate concern have stayed high throughout both the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crises, while support for government action on climate mitigation policies, such as decreased meat consumption and flying, has remained steady.
At the global level, there have always been tensions between developed and developing countries in terms of what is “fair”. Entrenched power dynamics ensure that developed countries have historically won out when deciding what a fair future looks like.
Most recently, those tensions have been evident in the lack of clarity around how loss and damage will be funded and managed – who will pay out when an island disappears, or a village becomes inhabitable to due drought, for example? There’s also much debate around how a new finance goal should be defined, with huge disagreements between the developed and developing countries.
As Juniper explains, not only is it unclear what fairness means at global negotiations, there is clear evidence that these tend to favour the more powerful countries, such as the US or members of the EU, and create an unjust regime. Steven Vanderheiden, one of the earliest climate justice philosophers, claims that developing nations are usually offered a “take it or leave it” deal, such as the new finance goal of US$300 billion (£232 billion) or about half of what developing countries were asking for, once developed nations have made decisions without them.
A fairer vision
In response to these inequalities and ongoing tensions, Juniper sets out a vision for a fairer, greener society – also known as a just transition.
A just transition is hard to define. It was once a relatively well demarcated and clearly grounded concept associated with worker’s rights.
Over time, it has become an increasingly all-encompassing policy objective, untethered from any specific policies, political objectives or priorities. Indeed, while there are certainly overlaps between the different visions of a just transition, significant aspects directly contradict one another.
Just Earth by Tony Juniper is out now. CC BY-NC-ND
Many of the messages in Juniper’s book have been shouted by those less privileged for decades. By using his platform to amplify the importance of climate justice, he is striving to make a difference. However, the voices of those from affected communities in developing countries, the working class in richer countries, and women (who will be hardest hit by climate change) are somewhat absent.
Juniper neatly encompasses 40-plus years of global negotiations on climate change and biodiversity, reflecting on core issues blocking progress, such as populism and fossil fuel interests. Getting your head around negotiations is a complex task – and it’s one that Juniper executes very well.
Juniper also discusses rising inequality, especially post-COVID, and the intersecting relationship between affluence and environmental destruction, with the richest consuming far more than the poorest and the top 10% wealthiest individuals having emitting more greenhouse gases than the poorest 50%.
He sets out the impacts of consumption, particularly of the wealthiest, and the unfairness of those being hit hardest consuming the least. He carefully dissects why indefinite growth of GDP can no longer be taken as a given.
Then he sets out his vision for a just transition with a ten-point agenda, including new measures of progress. He suggests focusing on wellbeing and sustainable consumption, not GDP.
He highlights the importance of financing the future and raising the transition war chest – that involves carbon tax regimes and additional public resources for environmental protection to build climate resilience. He advises switching subsidies to green energy rather than fossil fuels, and also advocates for the use of ecocide law to protect future generations.
While progress is possible, Juniper is a realist. He outlines how much our culture needs to shift away from consumption, competition, devaluing nature, and towards a fairer society for all. As he puts it: “We have nowhere else to go. There is just Earth.”
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Alix Dietzel 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.
When people talk about the coronavirus, they sometimes describe this invisible entity as if it has a personality and even a conscience. If you ask a biology or medical student what a virus is, they will tell you that a virus is not a living organism, or at most that it exists at the border between living and dead – a kind of walking dead.
For biologists who specialise in virology, however, this view is not clear-cut. Scientists still disagree on whether viruses are truly alive or not.
What scientists can agree on is that a virus adapts to new conditions, evolves and sometimes harms humans. It is also an infectious agent that can only replicate within a host organism such as bacteria, plants or animals.
The boundary between being alive and dead is a concept with no specific criteria. So to help you think about whether viruses are alive, I will talk you through some of the different definitions of life in science.
Throughout history, scientists have debated the definition of life and researchers from different fields still disagree. This debate shapes scientific understanding and influences public health decisions – for example, defining whether viruses are “alive” affects how we design vaccines and strategies to stop their spread.
Biologists may refer you to Erwin Schrödinger’s definition of life. Schrödinger was an Austrian Nobel-prize winning physicist who published a book in 1944 called What is Life? He was one of the first scientists to try to define life and is perhaps better known in popular culture for his “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment.
He proposed that life is a form of negative “entropy”, a scientific concept that explains how disordered something is. A physical system will always increase in entropy/disorder unless we insert energy to change this process. Schrödinger thought living things create and maintain order by using energy.
For example, a messy bedroom doesn’t clean itself, but a person can tidy it. Organisms do something similar at the molecular level. DNA is highly structured, allowing it to store genetic information. Proteins fold into specific shapes to function properly. In contrast, after an organism dies, its molecules break down, increasing disorder.
Schrödinger later revised his view – around the 1950s – suggesting that life depends on free energy. Free energy is the energy that drives chemical reactions in living things. This marked a shift from focusing on order (negative entropy) to emphasising energy as essential for life.
Rather than seeking a single definition, researchers classify entities based on these traits. To decide whether a virus is alive, researchers assess how well it meets these criteria.
According to biology, the smallest unit of life is the cell. A cell is an independent unit which makes functional molecules (such as proteins and enzymes). Cells can use their own molecules to replicate genetic material independently. A virus also has genetic material but needs to use the host cell’s enzymes to make functional molecules or replicate its genetic material.
Put simply, a virus does not replicate or function independently. So by the biological definition, a virus cannot be categorised as a living organism.
But from a genetic and evolutionary point of view a living organism is defined by its ability to reproduce. A person who does not have children is still considered to be alive as they are part of the gene pool and descended from people who did have children. From this view a virus is alive, since it can produce similar offspring.
Some scientists also focus on metabolism and energy production as criteria for life. Metabolism includes catabolism (breaking down molecules like sugars during digestion) and anabolism (building molecules like muscle tissue), linking energy and material. These reactions require molecular structures to generate or use energy – structures viruses lack.
Does that mean viruses aren’t alive? An amoeba, for instance, uses nutrients and enzymes to sustain itself, while viruses rely entirely on a host. From this perspective, viruses don’t meet the metabolic criteria for life. However, some argue that since viruses hijack a host’s metabolism to replicate, they show life-like behaviour.
If we consider nutrients to be sources of free energy, a cell uses energy from the environment to build what it needs. As the cell absorbs energy from the environment, it builds and maintains its internal structures – like proteins and membranes.
It also releases a byproduct – carbon dioxide – that contributes to disorder in the external environment. Viruses also do this. They make their structures by using the external environment, a host cell in this case. The viruses’ byproducts may be what makes us sick.
As we explore the complexities of biology, it becomes clear that defining life itself is anything but straightforward. Viruses display both life-like and non-living traits, which influences how we approach treatments like antiviral drugs designed to block their replication inside host cells.
Heshmat Borhani 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.
Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What did Gaia achieve? And perhaps most importantly, why was it my favourite space telescope?
Running on empty
Gaia was retired for a simple reason: after more than 11 years in space, it ran out of the cold gas propellant it needed to keep scanning the sky.
The telescope did its last observation on 15 January 2025. The ESA team then performed testing for a few weeks, before telling Gaia to leave its home at a point in space called L2 and start orbiting the Sun away from Earth.
L2 is one of five “Lagrangian points” around Earth and the Sun where gravitational conditions make for a nice, stable orbit. L2 is located 1.5 million kilometres from Earth on the “dark side”, opposite the Sun.
L2 is a highly prized location because it’s a stable spot to orbit, it’s close enough to Earth for easy communication, and spacecraft can use the Sun behind them for solar power while looking away from the Sun out into space.
It’s also too far away from Earth to send anyone on a repair mission, so once your spacecraft gets there it’s on its own.
Gaia used its thrusters for the last time to push itself away from L2, and is now drifting around the Sun in a “retirement orbit” where it won’t get in anybody’s way.
To do this, it measured the precise positions and motions of 1.46 billion objects in space. Gaia also measured brightnesses and variability and those data were used to provide temperatures, gravitational parameters, stellar types and more for millions of stars. One of the key pieces of information Gaia provided was the distance to millions of stars.
A cosmic measuring tape
I’m a radio astronomer, which means I use radio telescopes here on Earth to explore the Universe. Radio light is the longest wavelength of light, invisible to human eyes, and I use it to investigate magnetic stars.
But even though I’m a radio astronomer and Gaia was an optical telescope, looking at the same wavelengths of light our eyes can see, I use Gaia data almost every single day.
I used it today to find out how far away, how bright, and how fast a star was. Before Gaia, I would probably never have known how far away that star was.
This is essential for figuring out how bright the stars I study really are, which helps me understand the physics of what’s happening in and around them.
A huge success
Gaia has contributed to thousands of articles in astronomy journals. Papers released by the Gaia collaboration have been cited well over 20,000 times in total.
Gaia has produced too many science results to share here. To take just one example, Gaia improved our understanding of the structure of our own galaxy by showing that it has multiple spiral arms that are less sharply defined than we previously thought.
Not really the end for Gaia
It’s difficult to express how revolutionary Gaia has been for astronomy, but we can let the numbers speak for themselves. Around five astronomy journal articles are published every day that use Gaia data, making Gaia the most successful ESA mission ever. And that won’t come to a complete stop when Gaia retires.
The Gaia collaboration has published three data releases so far. This is where the collaboration performs the processing and checks on the data, adds some important analysis and releases all of that in one big hit.
And luckily, there are two more big data releases with even more information to come. The fourth data release is expected in mid to late 2026. The fifth and final data release, containing all of the Gaia data from the whole mission, will come out sometime in the 2030s.
This article is my own small tribute to a telescope that changed astronomy as we know it. So I will end by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has ever worked on this amazing space mission, whether it was engineering and operations, turning the data into the amazing resource it is, or any of the other many jobs that make a mission successful. And thank you to those who continue to work on the data as we speak.
Finally, thank you to my favourite space telescope. Goodbye, Gaia, I’ll miss you.
Laura Nicole Driessen is an ambassador for the Orbit Centre of Imagination at the Rise and Shine Kindergarten, in Sydney’s Inner West.
The first budget speech of Ghana’s new government on 11 March painted a picture of an economy in crisis, facing high debt and fiscal mismanagement. The finance minister, Cassiel Ato Forson, acknowledged that key International Monetary Fund performance targets would be missed and announced drastic spending cuts.
However, most Ghanaians just wanted to know whether the minister would announce the scrapping of the country’s electronic transfer levy (or e-tax), as he’d indicated he would.
The e-levy, a fee on mobile money transactions, was introduced in 2022. Ghanaians immediately united around the issue in fierce opposition, a sentiment that grew as the tax took effect.
Both major parties had campaigned for its removal in the run-up to elections held in December 2024.
How did the e-levy become so unpopular, and what will repealing it mean?
Over three years, researchers from the International Centre for Tax and Development worked with partners in Ghana to study the e-levy as part of our Digitax research programme. This study generated knowledge and evidence at the interface of digital financial services, digital identities and tax.
Secondly, beyond the revenue it raised directly, the real potential of the e-levy – and loss if it is completely abolished – lay in the data it produced. It was enabling the Ghana Revenue Authority to uncover users with significant incomes who were not registered for income tax.
Thirdly, the new consensus against the e-levy has arisen because important stakeholders such as mobile money providers and public opinion were not adequately managed from the start.
A difficult birth
Much like its departure, the e-levy was announced during a time of fiscal distress. Mobile money transactions had expanded rapidly, particularly after COVID-19, making it an attractive tax target, especially for the informal sector.
Given this growth in the digital financial sector coupled with the need for revenue, the e-levy targeted the value of electronic financial transactions.
Introduced in the 2022 budget at 1.75%, with a 100 cedi (US$10) daily exemption, it was met with strong resistance. The budget was rejected, protests erupted, and negotiations ensued. The government attempted to win public support through town hall meetings, eventually reducing the rate to 1.5% and adding exemptions.
It went ahead with implementation in May 2022, however.
Negative sentiment persisted, fuelled by confusion and concerns about its implementation.
The government framed the tax as being essential for national development and investment attraction. But efforts to justify the necessity and benefit of the tax seemed to fall short.
The studies also showed the grievances had less to do with the tax and its rates per se and more to do with how people viewed government and its trustworthiness to collect and spend money.
Did Ghana’s e-levy work?
New taxes are often unpopular, but that alone should not determine their fate.
Other key indicators of performance include:
Revenue: The e-levy met only 12% of the initial revenue target of GH₵6.96 billion (US$380 million). But, based on our research, we have concluded that this reflects poor forecasting rather than implementation failure. It still contributed about 1% of total tax revenue, which equated to about US$129 million annually.
Mobile money usage: Many critics feared negative effects on financial inclusion. However, one study of this impact shows that while transactions initially dropped, they soon rebounded and continued to grow. Another International Centre for Tax and Development study found that exempted payments values and volumes increased, with registered merchants who benefited from this exemption developing greater trust in government policies.
This result is striking given that in its design, the e-levy is potentially less regressive than most mobile money taxes in Africa.
Will it be missed?
Given public hostility, its removal may be widely celebrated. However, it leaves a revenue gap that must be addressed. Ghana’s fiscal history suggests this could lead to new, potentially unpopular taxes.
The bigger loss may be the dismantling of systems built to administer the e-levy. These new advances in tax administration allowed the country’s revenue authorities to track high-volume users who were not registered for income tax, offering a path towards more efficient taxation.
As governments face mounting revenue pressures in an era of high debt and declining aid, careful attention must be paid to the politics of tax reform. Perhaps the e-levy’s greatest flaw was the haste with which it was introduced, without adequate stakeholder engagement. Uganda faced similar backlash from rushed mobile money taxation in 2018.
Evidence shows that perceptions affect how users respond to taxes, and first impressions can be hard to overcome. So, it is essential to make sure they are seen as fair and appropriate from the start, so that they are sustainable.
Max Gallien is a Research Lead at the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). Through the ICTD, the research described in this article has been supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Gates Foundation.
Martin Hearson is a Research Director at the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). Through the ICTD, the research described in this article has been supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Gates Foundation.
Mary Abounabhan is a Researcher at the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) Through the ICTD, the research described in this article has also been supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Gates Foundation.
Nigerian women make up a significant proportion of foreign women giving birth in several countries.
A study done in Calgary in Canada found 24.5% of foreign women identified as having travelled abroad to give birth were from Nigeria.
Research in Chicago in the US found the majority (88%) of those seeking obstetric care in a hospital were Nigerian citizens.
In the UK, the phenomenon is labelled by some as the “Lagos Shuttle”, highlighting the high number of Nigerian women said to be so-called “birth tourists”.
Why is this? As medical and legal scholars we asked women who had travelled overseas for the birth of their babies to share their experiences.
Existing research has not done enough to capture their voices, which matter in framing service delivery and immigration policies.
We reported findings from this first-of-its-kind study in PLOS Global Public Health.
As there is no registry of foreign pregnant women who gave birth abroad, it is a challenge to find them. For our study, we used social media platforms to recruit 27 Nigerian women who had given birth to at least one child abroad and conducted in-depth interviews with them to understand their motivations and experiences.
Why women do it
Of all recruited, 23 gave birth to at least one child in the US, and four gave birth to at least one child in the UK. One woman each gave birth in Canada, Ireland and Zambia.
All the women in the study had at least a university degree.
We found that reasons for seeking childbirth abroad varied.
Some women were motivated by both perceived and experienced gains of foreign citizenship, which they believed might give their children a good education, a better living environment, and easier access to jobs and loans.
However, it was not all about citizenship. Another motivation was to benefit from “better healthcare”, especially for those who had either had bad experiences during previous births in Nigeria or were concerned because they were carrying what they called a “precious baby”, for example after years of infertility.
Many women in the study also sought childbirth abroad because it is where they had loved ones to support them through pregnancy, childbirth and having a newborn – a motivation not previously reported.
Some Nigerian women planned to give birth abroad long before they even got pregnant. Others were encouraged to do so by family, friends or colleagues.
Some decided to seek childbirth abroad after their income increased.
Mostly positive
Childbirth abroad is mostly a positive experience, but some women reported feeling treated badly because they were “self-paying” patients, “black”, or not native to the country.
While travel for many was mostly uneventful, some experienced life-threatening situations en route to their destination or upon arrival.
They found the cost of care to be exorbitant, but many reported that they were able to pay it off in instalments, or negotiated rebates or discounts from hospitals. A separate study showed that four in five foreign pregnant women who gave birth in a Canadian hospital, including some from Nigeria, had no outstanding bill after discharge.
In our study, those who struggled to pay said they incurred unexpected costs due to complications that resulted in caesarean sections or other surgical procedures.
Support during childbirth abroad was considered crucial and included loved ones from Nigeria who would travel with the pregnant woman to their destination.
Push and pull syndrome
With an ongoing exodus of Nigerians out of the country due to push and pull factors, known locally as jàpa, it is more likely that there will be more Nigerian pregnant women who have their support system abroad.
Countries like Nigeria should do more to improve the quality of care obtainable in their health systems.
Clearly motivations vary, and it is not always about birthright citizenship. While most women have mostly positive experiences, some have negative experiences that require attention and safeguards. For example, care guidelines in host countries specifically assuring good quality care for all pregnant women, including women who have crossed the border to seek childbirth.
The return of US president Donald Trump makes the need to install these safeguards particularly urgent. In his first term he ordered the United States Department of State to discontinue the approval of visas for pregnant women.
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.
A new archaeological discovery at Kach Kouch in Morocco challenges the long-held belief that the Maghreb (north-west Africa) was an empty land before the arrival of the Phoenicians from the Middle East in around 800 BCE. It reveals a much richer and more complex history than previously thought.
Everything found at the site indicates that during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago, stable agricultural settlements already existed on the African coast of the Mediterranean.
This was at the same time as societies such as the Mycenaean flourished in the eastern Mediterranean.
Our discovery, led by a team of young researchers from Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeology, expands our knowledge of the recent prehistory of north Africa. It also redefines our understanding of the connections between the Maghreb and the rest of the Mediterranean in ancient times.
How the discovery was made
Kach Kouch was first identified in 1988 and first excavated in 1992. At the time, researchers believed the site had been inhabited between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. This was based on the Phoenician pottery that was found.
Nearly 30 years later, our team carried out two new excavation seasons in 2021 and 2022. Our investigations included cutting-edge technology such as drones, differential GPS (global positioning systems) and 3D models.
A rigorous protocol was followed for collecting samples. This allowed us to detect fossilised remains of seeds and charcoal.
Subsequently, a series of analyses allowed us to reconstruct the settlement’s economy and its natural environment in prehistoric times.
What the remains revealed
The excavations, along with radiocarbon dating, revealed that the settlement underwent three phases of occupation between 2200 and 600 BCE.
The earliest documented remains (2200–2000 BCE) are scarce. They consist of three undecorated pottery sherds, a flint flake and a cow bone.
The scarcity of materials and contexts could be due to erosion or a temporary occupation of the hill during this phase.
In its second phase, after a period of abandonment, the Kach Kouch hill was permanently occupied from 1300 BCE. Its inhabitants, who probably numbered no more than a hundred, dedicated themselves to agriculture and animal husbandry.
They lived in circular dwellings built from wattle and daub, a technique that combines wooden poles, reeds and mud. They dug silos into the rock to store agricultural products.
Analysis shows that they cultivated wheat, barley and legumes, and raised cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.
They also used grinding stones for cereal processing, flint tools, and decorated pottery. In addition, the oldest known bronze object in north Africa (excluding Egypt) has been documented. It is probably a scrap metal fragment removed after casting in a mould.
Interactions with the Phoenicians
Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, during the so-called Mauretanian period, the inhabitants of Kach Kouch maintained the same material culture, architecture and economy as in the previous phase. However, interactions with Phoenician communities that were starting to settle in nearby sites, such as Lixus, brought new cultural practices.
For example, circular dwellings coexisted with square ones made of stone and wattle and daub, combining Phoenician and local construction techniques.
Furthermore, new crops began to be cultivated, like grapes and olives. Among the new materials, wheel-made Phoenician ceramics, such as amphorae (storage jugs) and plates, and the use of iron objects stand out.
Around 600 BCE, Kach Kouch was peacefully abandoned, perhaps due to social and economic changes. Its inhabitants likely moved to other nearby settlements.
So who were the Bronze Age inhabitants?
It’s unclear whether the Maghreb populations in the Bronze Age lived in tribes, as would later occur during the Mauretanian period. They were probably organised as families. Burials suggest there were no clear signs of hierarchy.
They may have spoken a language similar to the Amazigh, the indigenous north African language, which did not become written until the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet. The cultural continuity documented at Kach Kouch suggests that these populations are the direct ancestors of the Mauretanian peoples of north-west Africa.
Why this matters
Kach Kouch is not only the first and oldest known Bronze Age settlement in the Maghreb but also reshapes our understanding of prehistory in this region.
The new findings, along with other recent discoveries, demonstrate that north-west Africa has been connected to other regions of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Sahara since prehistoric times.
Our findings challenge traditional narratives, many of which were influenced by colonial views that portrayed the Maghreb as an empty and isolated land until it was “civilized” by foreign peoples.
As a result, the Maghreb has long been absent from debates on the later prehistory of the Mediterranean. These new discoveries not only represent a breakthrough for archaeology, but also a call to reconsider dominant historical narratives. Kach Kouch offers the opportunity to rewrite north Africa’s history and give it the visibility it has always deserved.
We believe this is a decisive moment for research that could forever change the way we understand not only the history of north Africa, but also its relationship with other areas of the Mediterranean.
Hamza Benattia, director of the Kach Kouch Archaeological Project, received funding from the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage of Morocco (INSAP), the Prehistoric Society Research Fund, the Stevan B. Dana Grant of the American Society of Overseas Research, the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust Grant, the Barakat Trust Early Career Award, the Centre Jacques Berque Research Grant, the Institute of Ceutan Studies Research Fund and the University of Castilla La Mancha.
“For Eid we have to call in sick and I don’t like that. You should have the day off school. And everybody gets a holiday….Not everybody celebrates it, people just want to have a day off. Having Eid, I fasted 30 days, like a month and I had to call in school and say, I’m not showing up because it’s Eid.’ They should know and I shouldn’t have to call in.” — Abdoul, research participant.
“When it’s Christmas, we have two weeks off, right? Even though we don’t celebrate, we still take two weeks. But in Eid time…we have to come to school. So if we can get [a day] off, that will be a big encouragement to our religion.” — Fatma, research participant.
These were some of the sentiments racially diverse students in Brooks Composite High School in southern Alberta expressed when my research assistants and I interviewed them for our inquiry into the challenges they experienced as they integrated into the Canadian school system.
Every December, students across Canada enjoy a two-week break to celebrate Christmas. In spring, Good Friday and Easter Monday bring further celebrations and a long weekend.
In contrast, for millions of Canadians who mark celebrations such as Diwali, Eid or Lunar New Year — some of the world’s most widely observed religious and cultural festivals — there is no formal acknowledgement, and for those students wishing to recognize these traditional celebrations, it often means being marked absent from school.
This gives us pause to reflect: What would it mean to make space in our school calendars to include different religious and cultural celebrations?
A moment of change in Alberta
Since the 1990s, the establishment of a meat-packing plant in Brooks has driven significant demographic changes, attracting a large immigrant and refugee population and increasing the racialized population from around three per cent in 1996 to over 45 per cent in 2021. Today, more than 75 per cent of students at the school are newcomers or children of immigrants, and approximately one-third are Muslim.
Our research emerged from senior school administrators expressing the challenges racially and culturally minoritized learners experience as they navigate the school system.
We engaged 13 English language learner (ELL) students in Grades 10 to 12 in a series of dynamic structured educational workshops we call Critically Engaged Language and Literacy Workshops (CELLWs). The students were mostly Muslim and of Arab and Somali descent, and were identified as facing more pressing issues that needed to be addressed.
CELLWs provide a space for self-reflection that promotes fair, inclusive and diverse education. They recognize the unique experiences of racially diverse students and help teachers create educational practices that connect past and present experiences across different environments.
Student voices encapsulated through arts-based initiatives at Brooks Composite High School, Brooks, Alta. (Rahat Zaidi)
Students reflected on their lived experiences, religious identities and feelings of exclusion. The workshop conversations resulted in efforts to raise community awareness (including social media posts on Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube) around a variety of social justice issues pertaining to the participants’ lived reality.
In May 2022, the students at Brooks made national headlines when the southeast Alberta school district agreed to acknowledge the religious celebration of Eid al-Fitr on the school calendar. This decision was a direct result of Muslim students and their families expressing frustration about being marked absent while celebrating one of the most sacred days in the Islamic calendar.
The school district’s decision wasn’t just symbolic. It demonstrated what meaningful inclusion can look like when education systems listen to their communities and reflect the lives and cultures of their students.
A call to action
As part of our research, our team also produced the documentary Bridging the Gap and its accompanying resource guide. The film showcases how using students’ voices and arts-based methods can break down systemic barriers related to race, language and religion in schools.
In a poignant moment, one student recalls feeling like an outsider and putting in extra effort to “fit in.” A parent in the documentary later states: “We have to keep our traditions for our children.”
As the first of its kind in western Canada, the film serves as a resource to support racially diverse families’ integration into education, highlighting their stories and building positive partnerships with schools and universities.
A trailer for the documentary ‘Bridging the Gap.’
Canada’s public holidays and school calendars tell a story about power, the stories that get told and, right now, the ones left out. Through open dialogue and building relationships of trust using platforms that encourage meaningful interaction, we worked together with the school, community and parents, to help racially diverse students bring about change.
We were able to give these students an opportunity to tell their stories; stories of power, resistance and victory as they made their voices heard. When schools make space for cultural and religious traditions, they affirm students’ identities and help foster a stronger sense of belonging critical for their well-being, academic success and civic engagement.
Rahat Zaidi received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Michael Kehler, Research Professor, Masculinities Studies, School of Education, University of Calgary
Owen Cooper plays Jamie Miller in Adolescence which looks at the experiences of youth at a British school, showcasing their messy and disturbing experiences. (Netflix/Adolescence)
This story contains spoilers about ‘Adolescence.’
Adolescence is a turbulent time. And the transition to adulthood from youth is complicated.
Adolescence explores the impact of masculinity on gender-based violence and youth identities. Viewers step into the life of Jamie (Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy who is accused of killing a 13-year-old girl, Katie (Emilia Holliday). Exploring Katie’s violent stabbing death reveals the troubling ways masculinity and gender are manifested in the lives of students.
An equally compelling part of the narrative is the familiar struggle of parents trying to communicate with, make sense of and support the young people in their lives.
The routine interactions among the students and the exchanges between parents makes this a disturbing yet compelling part of the series.
Throughout Adolescence, it’s made clear that too often, parents do not see or hear what is playing out before their very eyes.
Adolescence viewers are unsettled by what we see, but desperate to hear and see more.
The school depicted in the show portrays almost all students struggling to be heard. It also reveals a rebelliousness and a resistance among teachers required to enforce rules of cellphone bans and uniform regulations amid a chaotic school environment.
The challenging communication between father and sons is highlighted in this show. Here, Jamie’s father (played by Stephen Graham) speaks with Jamie (played by Owen Cooper). (Netflix)
At the centre of the story is Jamie, the 13-year-old accused boy. He is a child, fearing needles while a teddy bear is nestled on his bed. Ostensibly, he is any boy. And Katie is any girl.
But Katie is murdered, leaving the viewer to sort though a tangled web of adolescent relationships in which Jamie shows what he believes about being a man, about being masculine. He is both innocent and deeply troubling.
Gender-based violence
Police detective Luke Branscombe (Ashley Walters) cannot fathom the anger expressed by Katie’s best friend, Jade (Fatima Bojang), about the murder. He thinks her furious reaction is out of kilter with the murder. He questions why she is over-reacting.
Katie’s best friend, portrayed by Fatima Bojang, expresses her grief. (Netflix)
A violent outburst by Jamie, who verbally attacks the counsellor who is struggling to understand what being a man feels like for Jamie, is chilling.
He belittles the counsellor (played by Erin Doherty), suggesting she should be ashamed to be afraid of a 13-year-old boy. The counsellor is subjected to extreme anger and violence pent up in an adolescent boy who has been harbouring feelings of inadequacy but struggling to express them.
It becomes clear that Jamie had no venue nor language to speak about his feelings about masculinity, his relationships or his deeply held belief that he is “ugly.”
Like many young people, the youth in Adolescence — Jamie, Jade, Katie, Ryan and Tommy — navigate online sexual harrassment alone. They do so, in part, because they lack support and education in critical media literacy, digital consent and online harassment.
Teaching them to be boys
Watching adults struggling to talk with teenagers is not shocking. Notions that boys don’t talk or aren’t emotional are familiar stereotypes of masculinity.
But what might be shocking to viewers in Adolescence is the raw and unfiltered ways some boys talk violently, aggressively, dismissively and defensively.
“You do not control what I fucking [do]. Look at me now!” Jamie screams at his counsellor, struggling to express his emotions and his pent-up feelings.
Boys are not supposed to be vulnerable or emotionally honest, and as Jamie points out, parents are supposed to ignore how boys are feeling or whether they have feelings at all. Like many boys, Jamie has been taught to be a particular kind of boy, which includes years of surveillance, bullying and being ostracized by other, more popular boys.
Boys learn to hide feelings, repress vulnerabilities and present stoicism and strength above all else.
Adolescence is a story about adolescent youth with a sharp focus on how they negotiate and embody power. It is a complex story about the ways youth communicate through bullying, surveillance and social mediaharrassment that is evident both in school lives as well as behind closed doors.
The viewer is invited to look more closely at the subtle and not so subtle ways gender, power and violence manifest themselves. The show questions how complicit we might be in what young people are learning and how we might respond to both the rebellion as well as the silences, particularly among boys.
The lure of the manosphere, the attraction of incel groups and the banning of cell phones in schools reflect a deep failure to understand how to communicate with youth. The character Adam, (played by Amari Bacchus), son of the detective investigating the case, is understated and overlooked as he reveals just how little parents understand emojis as yet another language among youth.
Adam extends a hand to educate his dad, to open up communication even in the face of assumptions that “boys don’t talk.” He demonstrates a counter-narrative to rigid rules and stereotypes about boys.
In all of this, we — the viewers, the critics and myself, the masculinity scholar — tread dangerously close to forgetting to say “Katie,” the victim’s name. We focus on boys as pawns with no agency or accountability for what they do in their daily efforts to be accepted as real men.
We are left then with an invitation to see and hear boys differently, not through stereotypes of masculinity. The loss of membership in the boys club is often too much for many boys to withstand. This includes alienation, bullying, and verbal and physical attacks. And so too many remain silent and complicit, as just “one of the boys.”
Michael Kehler 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.
The first months of Donald Trump’s presidency have been defined by a single word: tariffs. He has framed tariffs as a panacea to the woes of the American economy, promising they will restore the country’s manufacturing sector and reduce the national deficit.
In response to the mounting concerns, the federal government met with the heads of Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Costco and Walmart in 2023 to discuss stabilizing grocery prices in Canada. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would threaten and later implement amendments to the Competition Act through Bill C-56, although these reforms were focused less on immediately lowering grocery bills and more on giving new tools to Canada’s competition watchdog.
Investing in the future
Another area of concern is the initiatives supermarket chains such as Loblaw and Metro have been investing their profits in.
There is little reason to believe Canada’s grocery industry will reform itself. Many of the pro-consumer and pro-worker initiatives put forth by these chains have amounted to little more than public relations moves.
When Loblaw froze prices on No Name products in 2022, its competitor Metro quickly pointed out that seasonal price freezes are in fact a standard industry practice. (CBC News)
The question remains: what concrete measures can be implemented to safeguard Canadian grocery bills as our country navigates this next crisis?
Lowering grocery bills for Canadians
A report from the Broadbent Institute suggests the idea of a windfall profit tax, which would incentivize grocery companies to invest excess profits into price reductions or higher wages.
A more durable reform would involve creating a central bank-style regulatory entity to oversee the grocery industry, instead of relying on industry-born measures such as Canada’s recently introduced grocery code of conduct.
Federal or provincial legislation could be also passed that places guardrails on dynamic pricing in the grocery aisle, if not banning the controversial practice altogether. Government grants and tax incentive programs could be withheld from companies that invest heavily into automating workforces so the government isn’t inadvertently subsidizing job losses.
The Competition Bureau’s 2023 report highlights another key issue: there is a need for all levels of government to shift from subsidizing large chains and encourage the growth of independent grocers in the Canadian market, driving down prices for consumers through meaningful, local competition.
Trump’s trade war has filled Canadians with a newfound pride and motivation to buy local to support the economy. Perhaps it’s time our grocery chains showed the same commitment to the people they serve.
Mathew Iantorno 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.
A virus like avian influenza is carried by birds, but it can “jump” species and infect livestock such as dairy or sheep or even pets like dogs and cats.
The good news is, we are better prepared than ever to meet that challenge. Not just because we have vaccines or treatments, although those are critical. But because we have something that can change the game entirely: artificial intelligence (AI).
CBC News covers an outbreak of avian flu among Canadian geese in Prince Edward Island.
Vast amounts of information
AI can offer much in the way of advance pandemic information and planning. Remember the early days of COVID-19? What if we had more time to prepare? What if health officials had known weeks earlier where the virus was spreading, which neighbourhoods were most at risk, and what we needed to do to stop it?
AI can analyze vast amounts of information, from wildlife health reports, geographical data, satellite images to social media trends, online content, farm data and even weather patterns to answer some questions about how, when and why pandemics happen. It spots patterns, anomalies and relationships humans cannot see in real-time.
AI can alert monitors to where an avian influenza outbreak might occur before a region is impacted, how severe an outbreak might be and what type of intervention may be most effective. AI can help responders and governments act quickly, precisely and efficiently.
Predicting outbreaks
At the University of Guelph, my research team and I are working on AI solutions to help track and predict the avian influenza outbreaks. Our research — which is currently under review — has used AI to filter out misinformation about avian influenza from social media platforms and Reddit, as well as Google search data, and other online sources.
This helps us understand public discussion about avian influenza. We have also combined these online activities with other data sources to monitor avian influenza online mentions and trends — we’ve found that AI can use this information to predict if an outbreak might occur in a specific area.
With the availability of online and social media data, an outbreak surge can be predicted up to four weeks in advance in specific regions.
Our research team has also created and tested decision support tools that use different types of information from wild bird reports, satellite images, climate change data and farm information. These tools help predict avian influenza outbreaks and how serious they might be in a certain area; through testing, we achieved an accuracy of 85 per cent.
We’re currently in the process of building a Canadian tool to predict where bird flu might emerge, helping farmers and public health officials get ahead of outbreaks — this could mean the difference between a contained outbreak and a global crisis.
More than a public health issue
A sign warning hikers about an avian flu outbreak along the Skerwink Hiking Trail in Newfoundland. (Shutterstock)
Avian influenza spreads through the food chain, wildlife and global trade. An outbreak in poultry can devastate agriculture and threaten our food security. Worse, it can jump to human populations with little warning.
This issue is not just a public health issue. It is also an economic and social concern. But if we harness AI properly, we can give ourselves a better chance at combating these threats. We can predict where the next outbreak might come from and take action before it spreads.
Using AI to predict avian flu outbreaks and spread can be applied to other situations, including other illnesses and the weather and environmental conditions that could contribute to disease spread.
AI-based decision tools can also include augmented reality that enables the testing of thousands of hypothetical scenarios related to avian influenza. These include how outbreaks might spread, what the impacts of different intervention strategies could be, how changes in the economy and environment might occur, and how the supply chain could be impacted.
We have the technology in our labs. But to make it work, we need strong partnerships between government, universities, farmers, industry and communities. We need to make sure that we generate high quality data, use the data ethically in a privacy-preserving manner, develop the AI tool responsibly and apply it fairly to ensure that no one is left behind.
Rozita Dara receives funding from Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness Alliance Tier I, funding and the University of Guelph’s Food from Thought.
This election is already shaping up as very much about energy. But notably, ambitions for and debate about combatting climate change have receded in recent times.
Peter Dutton has his proposal for an east coast gas reservation scheme at the centre of his campaign. Then of course there is that much-contested nuclear policy. But the government has declined to produce a 2035 emissions reduction target before polling day and, apart from its commitment to net zero by 2050, the Coalition won’t talk targets in opposition.
John Connor, CEO of the Carbon Marketing Institute, says “probably not since 2004 has climate been so much in the shadows, at least at this stage”. It’s a matter of the “energy wars” rather than the “climate wars” so far, he says.
The climate change issue was potent in 2022, especially in helping the “teal” candidates get elected. It probably is still cutting through in their sort of seats. And climate change demonstrators are targeting election events.
Unsurprisingly, cost of living was a mile ahead of anything else, at 74%. Then came housing (37%), healthcare (27%), economy (26%), crime (25%) and tax (19%). Climate change followed seventh, with 18%, ahead of immigration (15%) and defence (13%).
When asked who would be best to respond to concern about climate change, Labor held a solid lead, 35% to the 22% who nominated the Coalition, but 43% said neither or were unsure.
The Morgan poll early this year compared issues of most importance to people in the September quarter of 2024 and the June quarter of 2022. Just under a third nominated global warming and climate change in 2022 (32%); by 2024 this was down to less than a quarter (23%).
The cost-of-living crisis is the most obvious reason why climate change has faded in many voters’ minds. That has pushed almost everything else aside, as families struggle with financial practicalities.
(The Carbon Market Institute says, however, that polling it commissioned, to be released later this week does show the public understand the link between climate change and the cost of living, even if the politicians are reluctant to go there just now. 62% of respondents agreed impacts of climate change – such as more frequent and severe bushfires and flooding – worsen the cost of living through insurance cost increases and grocery prices, with just 13% disagreeing.)
Now we are deeply into the transition to a clean economy the inevitable downsides are more to the fore. However necessary, they are painful, including high power bills (that have had to be subsidised by the government) and local arguments about transmission lines and wind farms blighting parts of the landscape.
After it was elected Labor highlighted the importance of climate change by legislating its 2030 43% emissions reduction target. But it has become reticent when asked to talk about the 2035 target for Australia.
That was initially due to be submitted under the Paris agreement by February, but now it won’t be announced until closer to the September deadline. Nor will the Climate Change Authority, headed by former NSW Liberal treasurer Matt Kean, produce its recommendation to the government before the election. The government’s explanation for its delay is that it can’t act before the the authority’s recommendation.
Dutton remains committed to the Paris agreement and the zero emissions by 2050 target. But he flagged at the weekend that he would not proceed with Australia’s bid to host COP31 in 2026.
The opposition says it would keep the safeguards mechanism that regulates emissions from large emitters, but we don’t know what changes it would make to it.
Nor do we know what would happen under a Dutton government to the various framework institutions around climate change policy. But Kean and his authority are certainly in the gun sights. Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume has said, “I don’t think that we could possibly maintain a Climate Change Authority that has been so badly politicised”.
Peter Dutton wouldn’t live in The Lodge (though it was good enough for Robert Menzies)
What is it about some modern conservative leaders and The Lodge?
Peter Dutton on Monday declared that, if he became PM, he would live at Kirribilli House, not The Lodge.
“We love Sydney, we love the harbour, it’s a great city, and so yes. You’ve got the choice between Kirribilli or living in Canberra. I think I’ll take Sydney any day over living in Canberra,” he said.
The opposition leader’s disdain for Canberra was obvious. Then again, perhaps when you’re planning to get rid of tens of thousands of Canberra-based public servants, Kirilly Dutton might find a browse around the Manuka shops potentially awkward.
From the way he extolled the virtues of Sydney, it doesn’t seem that Dutton wishes he could stay in his home city of Brisbane, prevented from doing so only by the lack of an official residence there.
As prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull didn’t just stay living in Sydney – he chose to remain in his own house. It was certainly more glam than The Lodge.
Yet The Lodge was good enough for the leader to whom the Liberals all pay homage. Robert Menzies and his family lived there quite happily for a very long time. Menzies’ daughter Heather Henderson, in her book A Smile for My Parents, tells of life in the bush capital, when her mother kept a shanghai in the wisteria to take potshots at the currawongs.
They were simpler days. The security-conscious Dutton would be appalled at the anecdote about the intruder who appeared one night in the Lodge kitchen. Pattie Menzies, who happened to be carving the roast for dinner at the time, walked into the kitchen, armed with the knife. The intruder fled. There was no official inquiry – just a reprimand for the maid for not snibbing the door.
Michelle Grattan 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.
People are being asked to check the use-by dates of bagged salad products they’ve purchased recently after a number of Australian supermarkets issued recalls due to potential bacterial contamination.
Recalls issued over the past week have affected bagged and pre-packaged salad products sold at supermarkets around the country including Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA.
The potential contaminant is shiga-toxin-producing E. coli or STEC. But so far, no cases of illness have been reported.
So what is this bacterium and how could it affect the salad leaves in your dinner or lunch?
E.Coli and STEC
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium that normally lives in the intestines of healthy people and animals. Fortunately most strains of E. coliare harmless and don’t cause symptoms.
But there are certain strains that can lead to symptoms such as abdominal cramping, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting. In some cases a severe infection can even result in kidney failure.
STEC is one strain that can cause gastrointestinal symptoms. It’s called “shiga toxin-producing” because the toxin from this strain of E. coli is very similar to that produced by the Shigella bacterium.
Shigella causes shigellosis, a gastrointestinal infection which can involve similar symptoms to STEC. Both can cause abdominal cramping, bloody diarrhoea, fever and vomiting.
Most people recover within ten days of the onset of symptoms. People suffering from STEC infection should stay hydrated and seek medical care if symptoms are serious or don’t resolve.
E. coli normally lives in our bodies without causing harm. But some strains can make us sick. Ezume Images/Shutterstock
How common is it?
One estimate suggests at least 2.8 million STEC infections occur globally every year.
In general STEC infections in Australia are very rare with less than four people per million affected annually.
The diagnosis of STEC infection is made by testing a sample of a person’s stool for the presence of the bacterium.
Children under five, adults aged over 65 and people with weakened immune systems are at an increased risk of STEC infection and of getting very sick with it.
Why are bagged salads often a culprit?
The current recalls are not the first time bagged salads have been subject to food safety issues in Australia or elsewhere. These products can be vulnerable to bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella.
Contamination in bagged salads can occur at various stages, from farm to table. It can begin early during growing when leafy greens can be exposed to bacteria from contaminated water, soil or manure.
During harvesting, handling and processing, cross-contamination can happen if the equipment or surfaces are not properly disinfected. Finally, packaging can contribute to contamination if it comes into contact with contaminated surfaces or hands.
The current outbreak
Health authorities sometimes test for the presence of food-borne bacteria by culturing bacteria from packaged foods in the lab as part of a proactive public health surveillance program.
If they identify the presence of concerning food-borne bacteria they will work with retailers to undertake recalls of that food product as a precaution to protect public health.
To date there have been no cases of illness linked to the current recalls. The presence of STEC doesn’t necessarily mean people will get sick from eating the salad product, but this is an early detection aimed to prevent food-borne illness.
Members of the public have been urged not to consume any of the recalled products, and to throw them away or return them to where they bought them for a refund. Anyone who has consumed the products and has health concerns should seek medical advice.
Many bagged salad products come with a selling point along the lines of “washed and ready to eat”. Given the current recalls, you might ask whether it really is safe to eat pre-packaged salads without giving the leaves a wash yourself.
Unfortunately, research shows using tap water to wash bagged leafy salads isn’t effective in removing bacteria. But washing your raw vegetables is still helpful in getting rid of any clinging dirt that may contain clumps of bacteria.
Fortunately the risk of getting sick from eating bagged lettuce is generally very low. It’s also important to wash your hands before handling food, check the expiry dates of bagged salads and pay attention to health alerts.
Vincent Ho 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.
When a jury in the New South Wales Supreme Court found Kristian White guilty of manslaughter, it was the first verdict of its kind in recent Australian history.
The verdict is significant because it offered a rare opportunity for the community to have a prominent say in what should and shouldn’t be regarded as reasonable use of force by police.
The sentence of a two-year community-based order means White won’t spend any time behind bars – a judgement that surprised some legal scholars.
Clare Nowland, aged 95, died after she was tasered by White, a police officer, in a nursing home in 2023. Nowland had approached White in distress while holding a steak knife. She fell after being tasered and died a week later in hospital.
In finding White guilty, the jury drew an important line in the sand around the appropriate use of tasers, and use of force more generally, by police in Australia.
It follows an emerging international trend, suggesting community expectations around police use of force are shifting. Recent convictions of Derek Chauvin in the United States and Benjamin Monk in the United Kingdom demonstrate this.
We don’t know much about what the public thinks about this issue. While this case is highly specific, it’s the first major window into what everyday people think police should and shouldn’t be able to do in the line of duty.
Excessive force: what are the rules?
Excessive use of force by police is notoriously difficult to define.
“Situational use of force” models, such as that used in the NSW Police, offer little insight, for officers or juries, about what level of force is appropriate for what level of resistance.
Officers in NSW are reminded that “the decision to apply force, including use of a Taser, is an individual one for which every officer will be held accountable”.
In this model, any officer who carries an array of weapons (as White did on that fateful evening) must be an expert in how to use those weapons proportionately to the threat they face.
But what tangible guidance do they have about what constitutes excessive force? Given persistent concerns among police scholars about deficiencies in training and other policy documents, it can be hard to discern what is reasonable or excessive force legally.
Every critical incident carries specific and different dynamics, and officers cannot realistically be trained for every possible scenario. Much depends on their individual decision-making.
So can we reach a definition?
How then can we find a universal way to recognise “excessive force”?
One of the better definitions of such force comes from North American police ethics scholar Carl Klockars, who suggested in 1996 excessive force was “any force that a police officer of the highest skill might find a way to avoid”.
This definition encourages us to think (and talk) more about what a police officer of the highest skill looks like. This is important in an era when ideas about what police can and should do are strongly shaped by Hollywood fantasies.
In the tragic set of circumstances that unfolded in the Cooma aged care home, we can ask ourselves: what might an officer of the highest skill have done?
Notably, a recently retired senior officer answered this question in the media the day after the events unfolded. He said “they could have thrown a blanket over her”.
Evidently, the jury agreed there were other options available that didn’t involve the use of a taser.
Modern policing must reckon with what a highly skilled officer looks like, especially as the profession adopts so-called “less lethal” force technologies such as tasers. What characteristics do we really want in a police officer’s “skills armoury”? Do we want a good aim, a strong physical presence, high levels of empathy or perhaps ethical decision-making? What should be prioritised?
The Nowland case has asked these questions. The jury’s verdict set the stage for a sentence that established a higher standard for policing vulnerable people, which made it surprising that a non-custodial sentence was ultimately imposed.
Justice Ian Harrison found there were mitigating factors, such as White’s claim he felt “justified” in his actions. As a police officer, this likely carried significant weight to reduce moral culpability and the need for “punishment”.
Justice Harrison also found White’s actions fell at the lower end of objective seriousness for manslaughter.
But what about ensuring the sentence reflects community ideals about policing standards, as reflected in the guilty verdict?
Many may now wonder whether there is any kind of police misuse of a taser that could be deemed worthy of the ultimate penalty of imprisonment.
But the case nevertheless remains a watershed moment. It provides an insight into what the public expects of police, and how strongly courts choose to reinforce those expectations.
Emma Ryan 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.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would withdraw Australia’s bid to co-host next year’s global climate summit if the Coalition wins the federal election.
Australia has lobbied hard for the right to host the talks, known as COP31, in conjunction with Pacific nations. Australia has emerged as a leading contender, and has the backing of most countries in its United Nations grouping, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand.
However, Dutton on Sunday described the idea of hosting the UN climate conference as “not something we are supporting — it is madness”. He also falsely claimed it would cost Australia “tens of billions” of dollars to host the event.
Australia would reap big benefits by hosting the high-profile global talks. It would likely attract considerable investment in renewables and clean energy export industries, and strengthen Australia’s national security during a time of increasing geo-strategic competition in the Pacific. To pull out now would be a costly move.
Decison deferred until June
The decision on who will host COP31 in 2026 was expected at last year’s summit in Azerbaijan. But it was deferred until June this year – after Australia’s next federal election.
Hosting rights are shared between five UN country groupings on a rotational basis. The final decision is made by consensus.
Australia’s bid to host with Pacific nations has considerable support. But Turkey, the only other country in the running to host COP31, has so far resisted lobbying efforts to persuade it to drop out.
An economic boost for Australia
Hosting the UN climate talks is a massive economic opportunity for Australia.
COP31 would be one of the biggest diplomatic summits Australia has ever hosted. Tens of thousands of people could be expected for a fortnight of negotiations, with satellite events held across the nation and the Pacific.
Adelaide is in the box seat to play host. The South Australian government estimated hosting the UN talks could generate more than A$500 million for the state. But economic benefits would be much wider, and longer-lasting, than tourism receipts from those attending. The talks are a chance to attract investment for Australia’s energy transition and for clean energy industries of the future, including critical minerals and green iron.
The UK government’s assessment of the value of hosting the UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 found the net economic benefit was double that spent – around A$1 billion. That includes benefits from trade deals and foreign investment. With abundant critical minerals, and excellent wind and solar resources, Australia has even more to gain.
Hosting the world’s largest climate summit is a chance to attract the investment needed to replace ageing and unreliable coal-fired power stations. According to the Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents the capital behind large-scale renewables, more than 70% of the investment in clean energy comes from international sources.
Dutton says he plans to replace coal with nuclear power (and to rely on gas until nuclear plants are built decades from now). The Coalition’s nuclear plan would require hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer support.
Securing our place in the Pacific
Working with Pacific nations to address climate change is key to Australian national security.
Australia aims to be the security partner of choice for Pacific island countries. And Pacific island countries are crystal clear: climate change is their “single greatest threat”.
The Albanese government has looked to cement Australia’s place in the Pacific by working with island nations to address climate change. In July 2022, Albanese joined Pacific leaders to declare a Pacific climate emergency and launched bid to co-host a UN climate summit with Pacific nations. In 2023, Australia signed a climate migration deal with Tuvalu that also prevents Tuvalu from pursuing a security deal with China.
Pacific leaders have welcomed Australia’s plans to host the UN climate talks and have agreed to work together to advocate for the joint bid. Walking away now could do real damage to Australian strategy in the region.
Embracing our clean energy future
Hosting COP31 is a chance to set up Australia’s economy of tomorrow, signalling the shift from fossil fuel heavyweight to clean energy superpower.
Australia is leading the clean energy transition. This is a story to tell the world. One in three households have rooftop solar. Already 40% of the main national power grid is powered by wind, solar and storage. We are on track for 80% renewables by 2030.
Australia is the world’s largest exporter of raw iron ore, but is well positioned to export more-valuable, and lower-polluting, green iron to major economies in our region. The potential export value of green iron is estimated to be $295 billion a year, or three times the current value of iron ore exports.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would withdraw Australia’s bid to co-host next year’s global climate summit if the Coalition wins the federal election.
Australia has lobbied hard for the right to host the talks, known as COP31, in conjunction with Pacific nations. Australia has emerged as a leading contender, and has the backing of most countries in its United Nations grouping, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand.
However, Dutton on Sunday described the idea of hosting the UN climate conference as “not something we are supporting — it is madness”. He also falsely claimed it would cost Australia “tens of billions” of dollars to host the event.
Australia would reap big benefits by hosting the high-profile global talks. It would likely attract considerable investment in renewables and clean energy export industries, and strengthen Australia’s national security during a time of increasing geo-strategic competition in the Pacific. To pull out now would be a costly move.
Decison deferred until June
The decision on who will host COP31 in 2026 was expected at last year’s summit in Azerbaijan. But it was deferred until June this year – after Australia’s next federal election.
Hosting rights are shared between five UN country groupings on a rotational basis. The final decision is made by consensus.
Australia’s bid to host with Pacific nations has considerable support. But Turkey, the only other country in the running to host COP31, has so far resisted lobbying efforts to persuade it to drop out.
An economic boost for Australia
Hosting the UN climate talks is a massive economic opportunity for Australia.
COP31 would be one of the biggest diplomatic summits Australia has ever hosted. Tens of thousands of people could be expected for a fortnight of negotiations, with satellite events held across the nation and the Pacific.
Adelaide is in the box seat to play host. The South Australian government estimated hosting the UN talks could generate more than A$500 million for the state. But economic benefits would be much wider, and longer-lasting, than tourism receipts from those attending. The talks are a chance to attract investment for Australia’s energy transition and for clean energy industries of the future, including critical minerals and green iron.
The UK government’s assessment of the value of hosting the UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 found the net economic benefit was double that spent – around A$1 billion. That includes benefits from trade deals and foreign investment. With abundant critical minerals, and excellent wind and solar resources, Australia has even more to gain.
Hosting the world’s largest climate summit is a chance to attract the investment needed to replace ageing and unreliable coal-fired power stations. According to the Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents the capital behind large-scale renewables, more than 70% of the investment in clean energy comes from international sources.
Dutton says he plans to replace coal with nuclear power (and to rely on gas until nuclear plants are built decades from now). The Coalition’s nuclear plan would require hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer support.
Securing our place in the Pacific
Working with Pacific nations to address climate change is key to Australian national security.
Australia aims to be the security partner of choice for Pacific island countries. And Pacific island countries are crystal clear: climate change is their “single greatest threat”.
The Albanese government has looked to cement Australia’s place in the Pacific by working with island nations to address climate change. In July 2022, Albanese joined Pacific leaders to declare a Pacific climate emergency and launched bid to co-host a UN climate summit with Pacific nations. In 2023, Australia signed a climate migration deal with Tuvalu that also prevents Tuvalu from pursuing a security deal with China.
Pacific leaders have welcomed Australia’s plans to host the UN climate talks and have agreed to work together to advocate for the joint bid. Walking away now could do real damage to Australian strategy in the region.
Embracing our clean energy future
Hosting COP31 is a chance to set up Australia’s economy of tomorrow, signalling the shift from fossil fuel heavyweight to clean energy superpower.
Australia is leading the clean energy transition. This is a story to tell the world. One in three households have rooftop solar. Already 40% of the main national power grid is powered by wind, solar and storage. We are on track for 80% renewables by 2030.
Australia is the world’s largest exporter of raw iron ore, but is well positioned to export more-valuable, and lower-polluting, green iron to major economies in our region. The potential export value of green iron is estimated to be $295 billion a year, or three times the current value of iron ore exports.
Once yelled at women seen to be pestering or annoying – or at feminists questioning and threatening the status quo – “harpy” has long been used as a derogatory term targeting women.
But have you ever wondered what a harpy was in the first place?
Much like similar derogatory titles “siren” and “fury”, the term “harpy” is derived from a group of monstrous female figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology.
This picture depicts the harpies being driven from the table of King Phineus, a story told in the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, in which Jason and the Argonauts search for the golden fleece. The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1967
Who were the harpies?
In Greek and Roman myth, the harpies were a group of animal-human hybrid monsters on par with other such mythological creatures like the sirens, the sphinx, and the centaurs.
Harpies were commonly imagined as an amalgam of a bird’s body, such as wings and claws, with a woman’s head.
The ancient story of the Aeneid, by Latin poet Virgil, describes the story’s hero Aeneas encountering harpies on his quest to found Rome, saying:
Maiden faces have these birds, foulest filth they drop, clawed hands are theirs, and faces ever gaunt with hunger.
In Greco-Roman myth, the harpies were typically tasked with meting out justice on behalf of Zeus and other gods by using their great speed from their wings and sharp talons.
The importance of their claws was likely a result of their name, which was derived from the Ancient Greek word for “snatching” (ἁρπάζω or harpazdo).
As was common of many mythological figures with hybrid features, the way their animal features were portrayed tended to vary across different media (art or literature), different narrative purposes, and over time.
Sometimes the claws were emphasised; other times it was their supernaturally swift wings and voracious hunger.
The harpies were not nice people. They existed in myth to dish out punishments from the gods.
Their primary target? Phineus, a seer and king of Salmydessus in Thrace, a city believed to have been located on the Western coast of the Black Sea near the modern day Turkish town of Kıyıköy.
His story is told in the Argonautica by ancient Greek author Apollonius of Rhodes. This tale centres on the journey of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece.
In the story, Phineus is said to have abused his powers as a seer by sharing too many of the gods’ secrets with mortals.
This was among the most egregious of crimes in the eyes of the gods, so an especially awful punishment was decided upon.
Phineus was blinded and given the dubious gift of immortality while still allowed to age endlessly. And worst of all, he was set upon by the harpies.
Every time Phineus picked up and tried to eat food, the harpies would burst out from the clouds, moving as fast as lightning, and
with their crooked beaks incessantly snatched the food away from his mouth and hands.
The harpies brought a further gift for Phineus: their smell. This supernaturally “intolerable stench” could putrefy food, so any scraps the harpies didn’t grab were left rotting on the table. You couldn’t even stand near it, “so foully reeked the remnants of the meal”.
And while the harpies swooped in and out in seconds, their smell stuck to the rotting food (and probably poor Phineus).
Some ancient poets add a little extra zest and disgust by also suggesting the harpies may have been defecating on the food, and presumably Phineus.
Most notable is Virgil in his text the Aeneid who wrote about “foedissima ventris proluvies”, meaning:
the foulest discharges from their bellies.
This was likely an exaggeration of their bird-like qualities, used to emphasise how disgusting and monstrous they were.
Phineus was eventually given a reprieve from the harpies, by order of Zeus, so he could help the hero Jason on his quest for the golden fleece.
Having completed their job, the harpies then flew to Crete to live in a cave far away from annoying mortals – only being disturbed once by Aeneas on his meandering path to Rome.
The story of Phineus helped harpies become a metaphor for greed.
Those compared to harpies could include greedy house-guests overstaying their welcome, people living extravagantly or frivolously, or even family members taking advantage of wealthy relatives.
Although the harpies were female monsters, the term was not exclusively applied to women, but used to describe groups of greedy people.
Happily, today the title of “harpy” is falling out of favour as a derogatory term. But the hordes of monstrous, snatching, winged women live on in modern books, games, comics, movies and TV shows.
From video games with swathes of harpy-like creatures snatching and clawing at the protagonist, like the 2020 video game Hades, to characters in stories inspired by Greek and Roman myth, the harpies are sticking around – like a bad smell.
Kitty Smith is a member of the Australian Society for Classical Studies.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Markus Wagner, Professor of Law and Director of the UOW Transnational Law and Policy Centre, University of Wollongong
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has doubled down on using trade measures – mostly tariffs – to reshape global trade. He plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on what he has labelled “Liberation Day”, April 2.
The Trump administration claims US producers face higher tariffs and more restrictions abroad than foreign producers when they export to the US.
The administration also examined tax systems such as Europe’s Value Added Tax and Australia’s GST, import regulations and other factors. It believes – mostly wrongly – these unfairly disadvantage American businesses and contribute to the US trade deficit.
As with many Trump initiatives, actual tariffs often change significantly between announcement and implementation, if they are implemented at all.
His reciprocal tariffs have been narrowed to imports from the US’ largest trading partners instead of imports from all countries. There may also be tariffs on specific sectors. Last week, Trump announced 25% tariffs on cars from overseas. At the weekend said he “couldn’t care less” if this made cars more expensive for US consumers.
Coercive control, revenue and re-shoring
President Trump has raised a myriad of puzzling arguments in favour of tariffs. They largely fall into three categories:
The first is the use of tariffs as a coercion tool against other countries. In the first Trump presidency, trading partners were pressured to renegotiate trade agreements such as the renamed but largely identical US-Mexico-Canada agreement.
Similarly, the Trump administration used the threat of tariffs to gain market access, elicit better trade terms or as a form of weaponised trade to achieve unrelated foreign policy goals.
Last week, Trump suggested he would consider a reduction in tariffs on China in exchange for a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner.
The second category is the use of tariffs as a source of revenue. The Trump administration envisions tariffs to be collected by a yet-to-be-created External Revenue Service. This would form the flip side of the powerful and much-maligned Internal Revenue Service.
Trump claims tariffs will be paid by the exporting country. This would be in theory to finance future tax cuts. In practice, tariffs are almost always paid by the importer of goods and usually get passed on to consumers.
There is a potential contradiction between these two rationales. It appears the Trump administration wants to make at least some tariffs permanent. But doing so would almost nullify the use of tariffs as a bargaining chip and coercion tool.
The final category is to encourage companies to “re-shore” production to the US to avoid tariffs and to support US jobs.
This would signal a reversal of what 1994 presidential candidate Ross Perot, speaking of the North American Free Trade Agreement, called the “giant sucking sound going south”. Some manufacturing may return to the US. But the high costs of building new factories, re-routing supply chains and uncompetitive US labour costs will hinder large-scale re-shoring efforts.
A long-term plan?
The Trump administration’s trade moves can be seen as part of a larger strategy to reshape the US domestic and the global economic system.
Vance warned “deindustrialisation poses risks both to our national security and our workforce”. Vance himself sums up this approach by characterising tariffs as a “necessary tool to protect our jobs and our industries”.
This line of argument overlooks a number of critical factors. Tariffs lead to higher prices for consumers. Unless currencies adjust, the inflationary impact could disadvantage the very people that can least afford it.
The same is true if other countries respond to US trade measures by responding in kind, as Canada and the European Union already have.
American farmers and other export-oriented industries will be hard hit. From a strategic perspective, the US position as global leader has suffered a severe blow. Some countries are openly pivoting to its geopolitical and economic rival, China.
If this scenario comes to pass, the US pullback – an outright withdrawal is unlikely – from the highly integrated international trading system might end up a more chaotic version of the UK’s pursuit of Brexit.
A step back in time
The world of liberalised trade that followed the end of the Cold War in 1990 is ending. Countries will turn inwards, prioritising their economic security and resilience. The costs of this turn away from multilateralism and international institutions, however, are not just economic.
A return of the “beggar thy neighbour” policies of the 1930s would be a dangerous path, with the world inching closer to the abyss. “Liberation Day” might push the world over the edge.
Markus Wagner 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.
Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What did Gaia achieve? And perhaps most importantly, why was it my favourite space telescope?
Running on empty
Gaia was retired for a simple reason: after more than 11 years in space, it ran out of the cold gas propellant it needed to keep scanning the sky.
The telescope did its last observation on 15 January 2025. The ESA team then performed testing for a few weeks, before telling Gaia to leave its home at a point in space called L2 and start orbiting the Sun away from Earth.
L2 is one of five “Lagrangian points” around Earth and the Sun where gravitational conditions make for a nice, stable orbit. L2 is located 1.5 million kilometres from Earth on the “dark side”, opposite the Sun.
L2 is a highly prized location because it’s a stable spot to orbit, it’s close enough to Earth for easy communication, and spacecraft can use the Sun behind them for solar power while looking away from the Sun out into space.
It’s also too far away from Earth to send anyone on a repair mission, so once your spacecraft gets there it’s on its own.
Gaia used its thrusters for the last time to push itself away from L2, and is now drifting around the Sun in a “retirement orbit” where it won’t get in anybody’s way.
To do this, it measured the precise positions and motions of 1.46 billion objects in space. Gaia also measured brightnesses and variability and those data were used to provide temperatures, gravitational parameters, stellar types and more for millions of stars. One of the key pieces of information Gaia provided was the distance to millions of stars.
A cosmic measuring tape
I’m a radio astronomer, which means I use radio telescopes here on Earth to explore the Universe. Radio light is the longest wavelength of light, invisible to human eyes, and I use it to investigate magnetic stars.
But even though I’m a radio astronomer and Gaia was an optical telescope, looking at the same wavelengths of light our eyes can see, I use Gaia data almost every single day.
I used it today to find out how far away, how bright, and how fast a star was. Before Gaia, I would probably never have known how far away that star was.
This is essential for figuring out how bright the stars I study really are, which helps me understand the physics of what’s happening in and around them.
A huge success
Gaia has contributed to thousands of articles in astronomy journals. Papers released by the Gaia collaboration have been cited well over 20,000 times in total.
Gaia has produced too many science results to share here. To take just one example, Gaia improved our understanding of the structure of our own galaxy by showing that it has multiple spiral arms that are less sharply defined than we previously thought.
Not really the end for Gaia
It’s difficult to express how revolutionary Gaia has been for astronomy, but we can let the numbers speak for themselves. Around five astronomy journal articles are published every day that use Gaia data, making Gaia the most successful ESA mission ever. And that won’t come to a complete stop when Gaia retires.
The Gaia collaboration has published three data releases so far. This is where the collaboration performs the processing and checks on the data, adds some important analysis and releases all of that in one big hit.
And luckily, there are two more big data releases with even more information to come. The fourth data release is expected in mid to late 2026. The fifth and final data release, containing all of the Gaia data from the whole mission, will come out sometime in the 2030s.
This article is my own small tribute to a telescope that changed astronomy as we know it. So I will end by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has ever worked on this amazing space mission, whether it was engineering and operations, turning the data into the amazing resource it is, or any of the other many jobs that make a mission successful. And thank you to those who continue to work on the data as we speak.
Finally, thank you to my favourite space telescope. Goodbye, Gaia, I’ll miss you.
Laura Nicole Driessen is an ambassador for the Orbit Centre of Imagination at the Rise and Shine Kindergarten, in Sydney’s Inner West.
One year after the government banned cellphones from schools to help students focus and reduce distractions in class, we’re beginning to see how it has been implemented and how successful it’s been.
As part of that process, our new research asked young people about the ban. Unsurprisingly, they had a lot to say.
Schools around the world, including in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, China and parts of the United States, have implemented similar bans. The guiding principle everywhere has been to help students do better in school.
But studies have shown these bans often don’t work as planned. For example, recent research from the UK involving over 1,200 students found no significant difference in academic grades or wellbeing between schools with strict phone bans and those with more relaxed policies.
With so many questions at the time of the ban about how it would be enforced, we wanted to hear what was going on in schools and what young people really thought. We spoke to 77 young people aged 12 to 18 from 25 schools around the country. Some liked the bans, some didn’t and some weren’t sure.
Mixed feelings
Many students had mixed feelings about the bans. Some admitted the bans helped reduce distractions and gave them a break from using their phones. As one explained,
otherwise, we’ll be on our phone all day, all afternoon, all night, and it won’t be healthy for our minds.
But other students said the ban had created new problems.
First, some students felt stressed and anxious when they couldn’t contact their parents or caregivers during the day. Second, they said the rules weren’t always clear or fair. Some teachers were strict, others weren’t. And sometimes, teachers used their phones in class, but students couldn’t.
That perceived double standard – where teachers can use phones but students can’t – left many of our respondents feeling frustrated and unfairly treated. In some cases, it even made them more secretive about their phone use. One student said,
Even though we’re not allowed to use our phones, everyone is sneaky and uses it anyway.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the cellphone ban would cut distractions so kids could learn and achieve. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
A lack of consultation
A lot of students said they weren’t asked what they thought before the bans were introduced. They felt as if adults made the rules without asking them or listening to them. One of our interviewees said,
It feels like they just ban everything, thinking it will fix the problem.
Many didn’t understand the purpose of the ban, especially since they still have to use laptops and other technology in class.
Examples like this show bans don’t always change behaviour the way they’re intended to. It can simply make students feel as though adults underestimate how tech-savvy they really are.
Young people as active problem solvers
The young people in our research offered some alternatives to the ban.
Many suggested allowing phones at break and lunch times. That way, they could stay connected without interrupting class. They also said adults needed to model healthy digital habits, not just set the rules.
Based on student responses, it does appear that learning and teaching how to use phones in healthy ways would be more helpful than banning them altogether.
Research from the Digital Wellness Lab supports this balanced approach, emphasising skill building over restriction. But for this to work, adults need support too. Teachers and parents need training and resources to help guide young people – and should also be surveyed on how they feel about the ban.
Banning phones doesn’t fix the bigger issue of helping young people to use technology safely and responsibly. If schools really want to support students, they need to move beyond one-size-fits-all rules.
Our research shows young people aren’t just passive users of technology. They’re active problem solvers. They want to be part of the conversation – and part of the solution.
This would involve replacing top-down bans with meaningful conversations involving young people and adults to build fair and practical digital guidelines, where everyone benefits.
Cara Swit received funding from The Oakley Mental Health Foundation, InternetNZ and the University of Canterbury’s Vision Mātauranga Development Fund to conduct this research.
Aaron Hapuku received funding from The Oakley Mental Health Foundation, InternetNZ and the University of Canterbury’s Vision Mātauranga Development Fund to conduct this research.
Helena Cook received funding from InternetNZ, Oakley Mental Health Foundation and UC Vision Mātauranga Development Fund.
Jennifer Smith received funding from Internet New Zealand and The Oakley Mental Health Foundation.
Every now and then an athlete comes along who makes people wonder, “how are they so fast?”
Let me introduce you to Gout Gout.
Gout is a 17-year-old sprint sensation from Australia, whose blistering 100m and 200m times have drawn comparison to none other than Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt.
While he was edged out over 200 metres in Melbourne last weekend by 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy – recent 60-metre world indoor silver medallist who is a rising sprinter poised to break the ten-second barrier for 100 metres – Gout’s performances continue to signal a bright future on the track.
In a seven-month period since last August, Gout has:
won silver in the 200m at the World Junior Championships (20.60 seconds, -0.7 metres/second wind)
two weeks ago in Brisbane, smashed through the magical 20-second barrier for the 200m, recording a world-leading 19.98 seconds (+3.6m/s), albeit wind-aided (anything greater than 2.0 metres/second is considered wind-aided).
But what makes Gout so fast?
Is it his explosive start, long stride, top speed or smooth technique?
The answer, as with all athletic outliers, is likely a combination of several unique attributes.
Let’s dive into the science.
The science of sprinting
Sprinting is an ongoing battle of force and mass.
Gravity is pulling the athlete’s body mass down. Meanwhile, the athlete must apply muscular force into the track to keep the body upright.
Research suggests the world’s fastest sprinters generate the highest ground reaction force relative to their body mass and apply it in the shortest period, in the right direction (more horizontally in acceleration and more vertically at top speed).
At 5’11” (180cm) and 66kg, Gout does not display the muscular physiques of past champion sprinters including Asafa Powell (Jamaica), Justin Gatlin (the USA), or Australia’s own Matt Shirvington. Yet his performances suggest is he redefining the archetype of elite sprinting.
For anyone who has run at school, you know the difficulty of holding your top speed for the duration of a 200-metre race.
But Gout defies logic. His speed endurance (maintaining speed) sets him apart from nearly all athletes.
And not just compared to his age group, although he currently sits second on the all-time under-18 200-metre list behind US runner Erriyon Knighton.
Gout’s speed endurance is up there with the best in 200-metre history: Bolt, Michael Johnson or Noah Lyles. Each of them has won multiple Olympic medals.
The fastest official 100-200 metre segment (the final 100 metres of the race) ever run in a 200-metre event is 9.16 seconds by American Lyles, on his way to winning the 2022 world athletics championships in Oregon (19.31 seconds overall).
In Gout’s recent performance in Brisbane, he completed this segment of the race in 9.31 seconds. Bolt and Johnson’s best 100-200 metre segment is 9.27 and 9.20 seconds respectively.
This statistic puts Gout in elite company.
The magic of Gout
Closer analysis of Gout’s performance highlights some sprinting anomalies.
He covers the first 100m of the race in 10.67 seconds, which is quite slow relative to his finishing time of 19.98.
For comparison, when Bolt broke the 200-metre world record in 2009 (19.19 seconds), he ran 9.92 seconds on the curve (and 9.27 seconds on the straight).
But once Gout enters the straight, his magic is on full display.
This allows Gout to take between 3.75-4 steps for each ten-metre segment, which he covers at an average speed of 10.8m/s (or 38.8km/h). Like Bolt, his step length is a huge advantage over his competitors.
However, there is a trade-off with step length and step frequency.
Gout’s longer-than-average step length reduces his average step frequency to 4.15Hz (steps per second), much lower than Bolt who averaged 4.47Hz when at his best.
However, research highlights elite sprinters are reliant on either step length or frequency, and athletes should train to their strengths, rather than fixing their weaknesses.
So this may not be an area of concern for the teenager.
Gout also displays a unique coordination pattern in how he interacts with the ground: the way he strikes the track with his feet almost makes it look like he has springs in his spikes.
Longer Achilles tendon length and stiffness play a huge role in sprint efficiency. This allows athletes to move at faster speeds for longer periods at a reduced energy cost, and may be another one’s of Gout advantages over his contemporaries.
A bright future
At 17, Gout’s performances are out of this world.
The way he generates and maintains speed challenges some conventional paradigms in sprinting – namely that raw power and muscle mass are the primary determinants of speed.
With most elite sprinters peaking in their mid-20s, Gout’s performances at this stage of his career are even more noteworthy.
His success likely highlights the role of his unique coordination patterns, biomechanics, technical efficiency, hard work and great coaching all bundled together.
Gout has already rewritten Australian sprinting history. Next up, he’s taking on the world.
Just don’t blink – he’s that fast, you might miss him.
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 (Au and NZ) – By Sugumar Mariappanadar, Senior Academic Researcher – Human Resource Management and Management, Australian Catholic University
For young people in the early stages of their career, the idea of waiting 40 years or more to retire might feel like a marathon. For those already feeling burnt out, it can be an excruciating thought.
So – why not take a break or two somewhere along the way?
The concept of “micro-retirement” is having a moment. While the term appears to have been first coined in 2007, it’s recently found new popularity on social media.
The idea is that retirement doesn’t have to be a fixed, clearly defined period at the end of your working life. Rather, it’s possible to restore your human energy and levels of wellbeing by dipping in and out of it, with small or large career breaks.
Many onlookers have pointed out that the underlying concept is not a new idea. Sabbaticals and other kinds of career breaks have been a feature of the workforce for a long time.
However, the trend gripping some of the Gen Z workforce on social media appears to be slightly different. And while it’s trying to solve some legitimate problems, it could also carry some unique risks.
Taking a break
The notion that rest is crucial – that humans shouldn’t just work themselves into the ground – is very old indeed.
Major religions around the world have long preached the importance of rest and restoration for human beings to survive the hardship of paid work.
Letting employees get burnt out isn’t a good outcome for anyone. fizkes/Shutterstock
Career breaks, however, are a bit different from the ordinary rest opportunities we get such as weekends, public holidays and annual leave. There are a few different types.
The first is the full-time career break, such as a sabbatical. This is where an employee, in consultation with their employer, hits pause for an extended period.
This might be to enjoy travel, develop new hobbies or complete training necessary for career progression. However, the company typically continues to pay a salary (or a percentage of it) during the mutually agreed period.
In Australia, many employees are entitled to paid long service leave after serving between seven and 10 years with the same employer, depending on which state or territory they’re in.
Taking a full-time job part-time, can also constitute a kind of career break for some. This is where an employee reduces their working hours or days and earns reduced pay compared to full-time work.
Other types of long-term leave can include parental leave and leave for medical assistance.
In Belgium, a government scheme allows employees to take a career break of up to a year, during which they receive a paid allowance from the government. Previous research into the scheme showed 76% of employees taking full-time career breaks from both public and private sectors were aged between 25 and 49.
When Gen Z is talking about micro-retirement, they often aren’t talking about exactly the same thing as a paid, mutually agreed sabbatical.
For many, micro-retirement is a voluntary choice to terminate their employment and support their living through personal savings or government support.
But they are trying to solve similar problems: the health and wellbeing risks associated with pushing too hard – or for too long – at work.
Research by the World Health Organization found the number of deaths from heart disease and stroke that could be attributed to long working hours increased by 29% between 2000 and 2016.
My own previous research has examined the “ceiling effect” of human energy. This is when an employee’s energy depletion reaches a tipping point due to their work and begins to affect their wellbeing.
When employees reach the tipping point, or ceiling effect at work, they often use coffee and alcohol as a coping mechanism. This has long-term negative impacts on health.
Sleep also becomes a problem, which can lead to “presenteeism” – where employees show up physically to work but function poorly. This can cost businesses in lost employee productivity.
Flexible or hybrid work can be a double-edged sword that leads to intrusion on home life.
Like any extended break, micro-retirement is a way to replenish or restore the energy depleted. Research into Belgium’s career break scheme found it did improve individual physical and mental health – but it’s important to remember this scheme paid an allowance.
What are the risks?
Micro-retirement might be a new label. But drawing parallels from research into career breaks, there is evidence of so-called “scarring” effects.
This is where the future wages of an individual attempting to re-enter the job market after a career break may be lower than if they had an uninterrupted career.
This can impact physical and mental health, and lead to lower income levels in retirement.
Businesses may not be too inclined to develop policies to implement paid career breaks such as sabbaticals. That may lead more young people to take their own unpaid breaks.
Outside of taking extended breaks, there’s a broader discussion to be had about increasing productivity by redesigning the way we work every day with sustainability and flexibility in mind.
It’s crucial there are ways for employees to disengage from work on a daily basis to restore and replenish their energy.
In addition to his academic post at Australian Catholic University, Sugumar Mariappanadar is a senior sustainability advisor at InSync Australia, where he has advised businesses on environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability business strategy.
