For most young people, learning about social and political issues doesn’t start with a textbook. It starts with a phone.
While debates intensify about whether to impose a social media ban on under-16s in the UK, it’s important to consider how social media can be a route for learning as well as potential harm.
Young people aged 14-15 are at a crucial stage in terms of their developing awareness of and engagement with political issues. Our research with more than 3,000 young people in year ten (ages 14 and 15) in schools across England found that 75% said they learned most about social and political issues online, including on social media.
This is far more than the 47% who (also) said they learned most about this at school. At the same time, though, only 21% said they were comfortable sharing their views on such issues online: 60% don’t share their views online.
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Learning about race and faith equality doesn’t just mean learning about anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter, for example. It also refers to the ways that young people, including those from diasporic and global majority backgrounds, develop their identities and values as citizens of the UK and the world.
Young people in our study described various ways they used online spaces to engage around race and faith issues. These included looking things up on established news sources like the BBC, and using news alerts on their phone. Apps like Instagram and TikTok were useful to some for updates from their extended family abroad, or to get direct information. This could include information from Gaza, for instance, where outside journalists have not been allowed in.
Some were wary of getting information from apps such as TikTok and YouTube, because they were regarded as potentially spreading false information and stereotypes about particular migrant communities, or presenting extremes. This wariness led them to crosscheck what they had seen on social media with news journalism that verifies its sources.
Further analysis of the survey – to be published in our forthcoming book – showed that most were cautious about sharing their views on social issues online. Statistically speaking, girls were also less comfortable than boys, and young people with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds were less comfortable than their white peers sharing their views online.
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But social media could also act as a sounding board for critically reflecting on, and emotionally processing events. For instance, a south-Asian Muslim girl felt that hearing other people’s opinions on an experience of discrimination can allow one to have multiple perspectives on what happened.
Learning from social media
Arguably, the fact that young people are often sceptical about what they see online is a positive outcome of their secondary online and media literacy education. But our research suggests that young people go online because they can’t get the information they need at school. Young people in rural areas, as well as those with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds, raised particular concerns about school as a place to discuss race and faith issues. Those in lower-income areas also showed lower expectations that such issues would be discussed at school.
Government policy has for many years made it hard for schools to teach about race and faith equality in particular. One reason for this is that exam pressure in years ten and eleven (aged 14-16) leads schools to consign direct teaching about equality issues to years seven to nine.
But more fundamentally, the content of the curriculum, including history, is heavily geared towards a white British and European worldview. Citizenship education has been neglected in favour of traditional academic subjects, and so equality issues are addressed in occasional Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons.
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Teens are wary of sharing their views on race and faith both online and at school. Rido/Shutterstock
More problematically, schools have had to walk a delicate line when it comes to talking about political issues. In recent years, schools have been warned that teaching white privilege as a fact in schools is unlawful, and that they must ensure they teach topics relating to Israel and Palestine neutrally.
We found education stakeholders including local authority advisers, teacher unions and community organisations are concerned about the lack of support for teachers to engage these and other issues accurately. This concern is something current policymaking, including the curriculum and assessment review, has not meaningfully addressed.
It’s not surprising, then, that only 38% of young people felt comfortable sharing their views at school. While this is a higher proportion than shared their views online, we would expect a much higher result from school if obstacles to sharing views there were removed. Such obstacles include concern about peer judgement, being disciplined, or because they felt they had to sideline their feelings, have a “thick skin” and focus on their studies to – paradoxically – get ready for “the real world”.
We need to carefully consider and balance young people’s rights both to protection and to information in school and online. Our recommendations call for much greater support for schools to negotiate race and faith issues, as taking away under-16s’ access to social media without greater school-based support could be more counterproductive than protective.
It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the northern Californian woods, a seven foot tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The image is endlessly copied in popular culture – it’s even become an emoji. But what was it? A hoax? A bear? Or a real-life example of a mysterious species called the Bigfoot?
The film has been analysed and re-ananlysed countless times. Although most people believe it was some sort of hoax, there are some who argue that it’s never been definitively debunked. One group of people, dubbed Bigfooters, are so intrigued that they have taken to the forests of Washington, California, Oregon, Ohio, Florida and beyond to look for evidence of the mythical creature.
But why? That’s what sociologists Jamie Lewis and Andrew Bartlett wanted to uncover. They were itching to understand what prompts this community to spend valuable time and resources looking for a beast that is highly unlikely to even exist. During lockdown, Lewis started interviewing more than 130 Bigfooters (and a few academics) about their views, experiences and practices, culminating in the duo’s recent book Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: on the borderlands of legitimate science.
Here, we talk to them about their academic investigation.
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What was it about the Bigfoot community that you found so intriguing?
Lewis: It started when I was watching either the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet and a show called Finding Bigfoot was advertised. I was really keen to know why this programme was being scheduled on what certainly at the time was a nominally serious and sober natural history channel. The initial plan was to do an analysis of these television programmes, but we felt that wasn’t enough. It was lockdown and my wife was pregnant and in bed a lot with sickness, so I needed to fill my time.
Bartlett: One of the things that I worked on when Jamie and I shared an office in Cardiff was a sociological study of fringe physicists. These are people mostly outside of academic institutions trying to do science. I was interviewing these people, going to their conferences. And that led relatively smoothly into Bigfoot, but it was Jamie’s interest in Bigfoot that brought me to this field.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
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How big is this community?
Lewis: It’s very hard to put a number on it. There is certainly a divide between what are known as “apers”, who believe that Bigfoot is just a primate unknown to science, and those that are perhaps more derogatorily called “woo-woos”, who believe that Bigfoot is some sort of interdimensional traveller, an alien of sort. We’re talking in the thousands of people. But there are a couple of hundred really serious people of which I probably interviewed at least half.
Many people back them. A YouGov survey conducted as recently as November 2025, suggested that as many as one quarter of Americans believe that Bigfoot either definitely or probably exists.
Were the interviewees suspicious of your intentions?
Lewis: I think there was definitely a worry that they would be caricatured. And I was often asked, “Do I believe in Bigfoot?” I had a standard answer that Andy and I agreed on, which was that mainstream, institutional science says there is absolutely no compelling evidence that Bigfoot exists. We have no reason to dissent with that consensus. But as sociologists what does exist is a community (or communities) of Bigfooting, and that’s what interests us.
Bartlett: One of the things that at least a couple of people reacted to once the book was published was the way we phrased that. On the blurb on the back of the book we say something along the lines of “Bigfoot exists if not as a physical biological creature then certainly as an object around which hundreds of people organise their lives”. A couple of people took that to be some kind of slight against them. It wasn’t.
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Do these people have any sort of shared personality traits or other things that connected them?
Lewis: The community is very white, male, rural and blue collar – often ex-military. I think Bigfooting is growing among the female population, but there’s a sense of the kind of ‘masculine hunter in the dark’ persona.
Bartlett: In America, you find a lot more veterans in the general population. But I think there’s also the issue of how they like to present themselves, because when you’re dealing with witness testimony, you’ve got to present yourself as credible. If you can say something like, “I was in the service” or “I was in the armed forces”, then at least you’re not likely to be spooked by a moose.
What surprised you the most about them, did they challenge any stereotypes?
Lewis: Some were very articulate, which did surprise me a little. I guess that’s my own prejudice. I was also very surprised about how open people were; I expected them to not tell me about their encounters. But a fair few of them did. Many of them wanted to be named in the book. I was also surprised about how much empirical data they collect and how much they attempt to try and analyse and make sense of it. And how they were willing to admit that a certain idea was bunk or a hoax. I expected them to be defending bad evidence.
Bartlett: There are extracts of this in our book, people saying “I was fooled by these tracks for ages. I thought they were real and then I found this and that and the other out about it and I revised my opinion.” So that did surprise me too.
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If they collect empirical evidence, does that make what they do science?
Bartlett: When you’re working in institutional science you’re working to get grants, you’re working to get good quality publications. You might want your name associated with particular ideas, but you do that through peer-reviewed papers and by working with PhD students who go off to other labs. In Bigfooting, you’ve got self-published books, you’ve got Bigfoot conferences, you’ve got YouTube channels, you’ve got podcasts and things like this, and they’re not necessarily a good way of making and testing knowledge claims. This is an aspect where Bigfooting is quite different to mainstream science.
It was interesting to study the fringe physicists and seeing where the common deviation from science was. And that’s a focus on individualism; the idea that an individual alone can collect and assess evidence in some kind of asocial fashion. The physicists I studied were quite clear that ideas like consensus in science were dangerous, when in reality consensus, continuity and community are the basis of most of science.
What is the most common form of evidence in this community?
Lewis: Witness testimonies. Without those reported testimonies, Bigfooting would not exist. A large part of the work of a Bigfooter is to collect and make sense of these testimonies. They get upset when these testimonies don’t have much weight within institutional science. They’ll make the comparison to court and how testimonies alone can put someone on death row. So they don’t understand why testimonies don’t have much weight in science. Beyond the testimony, footprint evidence is probably the most famous and also the most pervasive sort of trace evidence.
Photograph of an alleged Bigfoot footprint taken in Hoopa, California in September 1962 and featured in a Humboldt Times newspaper article. wikipedia
Bartlett: One of the reasons footprints are so important is that there’s the legacy of the Yeti and footprint evidence which proved to be relatively persuasive, convincing some institutional scientists that there was something in the Himalayas. And then there was the fact that the sort of two major academic champions of Bigfoot were persuaded by the footprint evidence: the late Grover Krantz (around 1970) and Jeffrey Meldrum (in the 1990s).
Lewis: These days you also see camera traps, audio recorders even DNA testing of hairs and those sorts of things. They’re capturing anomalous sounds and often blurry images. Some believe that a Bigfoot communicates through infrasound, although that is certainly disputed within the community. So what you’re getting now is more and more different types of evidence.
How can you know whether an image or a sound really points to Bigfoot?
Bartlett: What they do is go out into the forest and record a sound, for example, and compare it to databases of birds and other animals. And they may find there is nothing that matches it. Is it something that doesn’t sound like a car or a person or a bear or a moose? In which case, there’s the space for Bigfoot. And it’s the same with images to some degree.
Would you say that this interpretation is the biggest weakness or contradiction in their evidence?
Lewis: It allows them to create space for Bigfoot. Because if you can’t match it to something else, what could it be? You have this absence and then from that absence you create a presence. They believe it’s a scientific argument. In fact, it’s kind of interesting how Bigfooters will always enrol other kinds of magical beasts to strengthen the case for Bigfoot. So, one sentence I hear quite a lot is “it ain’t no unicorn”.
Jeffrey Meldrum. wikipedia
What’s the hierarchy in this community? Who’s at the top?
Lewis: A-listers tend to be anyone associated with academia. So Andy’s already mentioned Jeff Meldrum, unfortunately he passed away very recently, but he was their route to contemporary academia. So in any conference, if Jeff Meldrum was speaking, he’d be last. Anyone who’s on TV, such as the Finding Bigfoot and the Expedition Bigfoot presenters would also be in the A-list category. And then you’ve got various different groups just below. For example, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, which is probably the most well known group.
What could Bigfooters learn from scientists and vice versa?
Lewis: From reading books and from discussing it with people, there was a sense that Bigfooters are anti-science. We did not find that. What we argue in the book is that they’re not anti-science. In fact, I would say a lot of them are pro-science, but they’re counter establishment. I think academia should be thinking about these people as citizen scientists and what they’re doing as a kind of gateway into understanding your local area.
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For example, they found an animal, I think it was a pine marten, on a camera trap that was not supposed to be in the area. So they are collecting lots of data. They are not irrational. It’s different from, for example, ghost hunting, because you don’t have to imagine there’s something entirely new in the world. It’s just an animal that exists out there that hasn’t been found. Implausible, yes. But not impossible. What they do lack, however, is academic discipline; anyone can be a Bigfooter.
Was there a specific encounter you heard about that was particularly compelling?**
Lewis: Did I get caught up in the moment? Sometimes, of course, you do, just as you do in a film. If you’re in the pitch dark night and you’re watching a horror film, you take it away with you for a while until you settle back down. I often went to bed buzzing, thinking I don’t know what I just heard; they were great stories at the end of the day. But I learned to separate the interview from my thoughts on the interview.
If you encountered Bigfoot in the woods, how would you go about convincing others?**
Lewis: A lot of Bigfooters would begin with qualifiers like, “My dad doesn’t believe in Bigfoot,” or “I have questioned myself for years thinking about this incident and what it was.” So, they would set themselves up as a rational, logical individual. That then created a connection between me and them. And of course, I’d probably be doing the same.
Bartlett: If I were to encounter Bigfoot, I would probably draw on all the techniques of proving that I’m a credible, hard-headed, rational person that we see in those witness encounters. I would expect to be disbelieved. And so therefore I would stress I was putting my credibility as an academic on the line here. So I’d deploy all those kinds of rhetorical techniques that are used by Bigfooters, aside from just the description of the encounter.
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The slow rise in the number of dead from the demonstrations adds to the overall tensions facing Iran both inside the country and abroad as it tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program. A second round of talks remains up in the air as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed his case directly with U.S. President Donald Trump to intensify his demands on Tehran in the negotiations.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference,” Trump wrote afterward on his TruthSocial website.
“Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal, and they were hit. … That did not work well for them. Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
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Meanwhile, Iran at home faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of all dissent in the Islamic Republic. That rage may intensify in the coming days as families of the dead begin marking the traditional 40-day mourning for the loved ones.
Activists’ death toll slowly rises
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which offered the latest figures, has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. The slow rise in the death toll has come as the agency slowly is able to crosscheck information as communication remains difficult with those inside of the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s government offered its only death toll on Jan. 21, saying 3,117 people were killed. Iran’s theocracy in the past has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll, given authorities have disrupted internet access and international calls in Iran.
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The rise in the death toll comes as Iran tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program.
Diplomacy over Iran continues
Senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani met Wednesday in Qatar with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. Qatar hosts a major U.S. military installation that Iran attacked in June, after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June. Larijani also met with officials of the Palestinian Hamas militant group, and in Oman with Tehran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen on Tuesday.
Larijani told Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network that Iran did not receive any specific proposal from the U.S. in Oman, but acknowledged that there was an “exchange of messages.”
Qatar has been a key negotiator in the past with Iran, with which it shares a massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. Its state-run Qatar News Agency reported that ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke with Trump about “the current situation in the region and international efforts aimed at de-escalation and strengthening regional security and peace,” without elaborating.
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The U.S. has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.
Already, U.S. forces have shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a U.S.-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Trump told the news website Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the region. “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Washington contributed to this report.
Thirty five community groups and charities took part in the latest Volunteering Fair at the Dolphin Centre, in Darlington.
Seth Pearson, Director of Darlington Cares, which organizes the event, said: “Despite poor weather, it’s a great turnout that really showcases volunteering opportunities in the Darlington area. It’s a fantastic way for voluntary organisations to network and to recruit new volunteers.”
Julia Bean, trustee of Darlington Town Mission, which tackles isolation among elderly people, described the Volunteering Fair as “invaluable”.
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“We recruited new volunteers last year and one of them was a retired accountant who went on to become our treasurer,” said Julia.
“It’s a very relaxed atmosphere with great footfall, so it’s a great opportunity to connect with people who want to do some volunteering but aren’t sure what type of charity they want to be part of. The Volunteering Fair gives a real flavour of what’s on offer.”
Rachel Parry, of Darlington Oxfam, cited the example of a man who came forward as a volunteer at last year’s event and has gone on to train as a PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) specialist.
He has now helped generate thousands of pounds in revenue by PAT testing a stockpile of electrical items donated to the charity.
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“It’s a great example of the value of the event,” said Rachel.
Darlington Lions President, Denis Pinnegar, added: “The real value for us is being able to network with other local charities and learn from each other.”
A Belfast hospital is to be one of the first to trial an innovative new treatment for people with a common heart condition. The device uses electrical pulses to target and destroy heart tissue and stop irregular heart rhythms caused by atrial fibrillation (AF).
It is inserted into the heart in a minimally invasive procedure during which patients can remain awake rather than under general anaesthetic.
It is estimated that about 1.5 million people in the UK have AF, which can put patients at a higher risk of stroke. Some 15 hospitals will trial the Volt Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System as part of the pilot, including Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.
The device, developed by healthcare company Abbott, comprises a small catheter which uses high-energy electrical pulses to destroy targeted tissues in the heart to treat irregular rhythms.
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Christopher Piorkowski, chief medical officer of Abbott’s electrophysiology business, said: “We heard the physician feedback that patients need an alternative to general anaesthesia during a PFA ablation procedure that doesn’t sacrifice strong outcomes.
“The Volt PFA System is an option for patients who prefer conscious sedation, which can also lead to faster recovery times and shorter procedures for millions of people who suffer from an abnormal heart rhythm across Europe.”
Ulster Unionist Health Spokesperson Alan Chambers welcomed the news, saying: “This is a hugely powerful reminder that Northern Ireland’s Health Service can lead from the front. Often, the narrative around our health system focuses solely on pressures and waiting lists. While those challenges are real, today’s announcement shows another side of the story – Northern Ireland’s expertise, innovation and ambition.
“Atrial fibrillation is a debilitating condition affecting 1.4 million people across the UK. It increases the risk of stroke and heart failure and can severely limit a person’s quality of life. The ability of our clinicians to adopt cutting-edge technology that delivers safer procedures, faster recovery times and same-day discharge is a major step forward for patient care.
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“This new approach is not only good for patients, it is good for the system. Treating up to three patients per day instead of one, reducing reliance on anaesthetic support, and freeing up hospital beds demonstrates exactly the kind of smart reform we need: better outcomes and better use of resources.
“Credit must go to the dedicated clinical teams in Belfast who have delivered this UK-first. It also reflects the leadership and ambition of my Ulster Unionist colleague, Mike Nesbitt, as Health Minister. His focus on transformation, innovation and rebuilding confidence in our health service is beginning to bear fruit.
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“Northern Ireland may be small, but we have the expertise and drive to compete with the very best. Our task now must be to build on this momentum and ensure patients across Northern Ireland benefit from a modern, forward-looking health service that delivers real results.”
Other hospitals among those to first use the device are Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, Leeds General Infirmary, the Royal Devon, Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge and University Hospital Southampton.
Stuart Crossland, 57, from Lincolnshire, was the first patient to undergo the procedure at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.
He said: “I was going into atrial fibrillation around once a month, and each time it left me feeling exhausted and very unwell.
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“On one occasion it was so bad that I went straight to the emergency department, which is when I was put on the waiting list for this procedure.
“I was happy to be the first person to have this new treatment, even though it was quite daunting knowing I would be conscious during the procedure rather than going under general anaesthetic.
“The team’s kindness and reassurance made all the difference.
“The procedure itself was quick, and I can’t thank the staff enough – from the nurses and cleaners on the wards to the team carrying out the treatment.
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“Six weeks on, I’m already back running 5k, and knowing this could stop my atrial fibrillation for years to come is incredible.”
Dr Riyaz Somani, a consultant cardiologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, was one of the first electrophysiologists in the UK to use the Volt PFA system.
He said: “By providing a treatment option that doesn’t require general anaesthetic, we hope to be able to deliver atrial fibrillation ablation not only safely and effectively but also more efficiently, allowing us to treat more patients and help reduce our waiting lists.
“Our initial experience has been overwhelmingly positive, with all patients tolerating the procedure very well with excellent acute success rates.”
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Never been done before, it means new customers will be able to get all of the above streaming platforms, as well as HBO Max (which launches in the UK next month), in one package.
The newly announced entertainment bundle will be known as Sky Ultimate TV and will be available from £24 a month, starting April 1.
It’s designed for those who want a “never-ending supply of brilliant entertainment for the best value in the market” and offers more than 130 channels in total.
Sky customers to get ‘world-first’ Sky Ultimate TV package
Existing customers will get “easy access” as part of their Sky Ultimate TV subscription, with over £20 worth of streaming apps included each month, such as:
Disney+ Standard with Ads from March (date to be confirmed)
HBO Max Basic with Ads from when it launches in the UK & Ireland on March 26
Hayu from July, with a selection of top shows available from March
Additionally, current Sky Stream and Sky Glass customers with Sky Ultimate TV will get Disney+ Standard with Ads, HBO Max Basic With Ads and Hayu content added to their pack alongside Sky TV and Netflix.
Plus, existing Sky Q customers with Sky Signature, Sky Entertainment and other eligible packages will get Disney+ Standard with Ads, HBO Max Basic With Ads and Hayu content added to their pack alongside Sky TV.
Sky Q customers with Sky Ultimate TV get all of these as well as Netflix.
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Changes in TV Licence Fees Over the Years
Meanwhile, active Sky+ customers will have access to HBO Max Basic With Ads content and Hayu content alongside Sky TV.
Sky has also revealed that Disney+ Standard and Disney+ Premium customers can move their existing plans to Sky and save up to £5.99 a month on their bill (this may vary depending on their current subscription plan).
Sophia Ahmad, chief consumer officer at Sky shared that Sky Ultimate TV “marks a new era for Sky and NOW”.
Sophia explained: “Nowhere else offers this breadth of incredible entertainment in a fully integrated experience, with everything customers love watching side by side so viewers can jump from show to show with ease.
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“Millions of existing customers will get easy access to this new line-up as standard at unbeatable value.
“All NOW Entertainment customers will get access to HBO Max, included at no extra cost, fully integrated within the NOW app.”
“We’re proud to continue Sky’s legacy of innovation, making it easier than ever for people to enjoy the very best entertainment and best experience, all in one place,” Sophia said.
Sky customers feel Sky Ultimate TV package is ‘too good to be true’
On Reddit , Sky customers have been sharing their thoughts on the entertainment giant’s latest move.
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Someone wrote: “Holy cr*p that’s great.
Recommended reading:
“No doubt this sub will absolutely sh*t on this but honestly I think this is pretty decent that you get all that in a bundle. Content aggregation is exactly the way to go.”
Another posted: “This is a good deal, been thinking of getting Disney for a while but getting it for free soon is great!”
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This person on X said: “£24 a month for basically every major streaming platform? I’m in… but can someone explain why I still feel like this is too good to be true?”
One user added: “That’s actually a serious bundle. Four major platforms under one subscription for £24 is going to turn a lot of heads convenience + value is a powerful combo. The streaming wars just took an interesting twist.”
Will you be buying the Sky Ultimate TV package when it launches? Let us know if you think it’s worth the price, by leaving a comment below.
When the billionaire owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post from the Graham family in 2013, he promised a “golden era to come”. In February 2017, one month into Donald Trump’s first term as US president, the paper adopted the motto: “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, reflecting the perceived threat posed by Trump’s authoritarian leanings and the suggestion that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
That motto was turned against Bezos last week when it was announced that the Post was laying off one-third of its editorial staff, including its sports section and several of its foreign bureaus. The news was greeted with dismay in America’s journalistic circles. Marty Baron, a celebrated former executive editor of the Post, called the layoffs “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations”.
But in the years since Bezos acquired the Post it has become a symbol of a global wave of democratic backsliding in the US which accelerated as the prospect of a second Trump presidency grew through 2024. After an initial period of investing in the Post and hiring more reporters, he has now overseen a long period of decline.
Political concerns began seriously to mount in 2024 when, in the run up to that year’s presidential election, the newspaper broke a 36-year precedent by refusing to endorse a candidate (which most readers, given the paper’s traditionally liberal leanings, had assumed would be Democrat Kamala Harris).
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Since Trump has returned to the White House further evidence of this backsliding at the Post includes suppression of a cartoon critical of Trump’s relationship with US tech oligarchs by the Pulitzer Prize winning artist Ann Telnaes and a refocusing of the opinion pages to centre them on “personal liberties and free markets”. The changes have reportedly cost the Post many thousands of subscribers.
The cartoon that led to Ann Telnaes quitting the Washington Post. Facebook
But the malaise in US journalism is a much broader story than just the travails of the Washington Post. There’s a sustained campaign of cultural and structural violence against a profession that is under economic and political strain, yet essential to democracy.
Trump’s hostility toward certain sections of the press is not new. During his first term he used non-journalistic platforms to brand mainstream media outlets “the enemy of the people”. His hostility was directed at both institutional and personal level, launching attacks against individual journalists and their employers (the “failing New York Times”, his clash with CNN’s Jim Acosta, etc).
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In his second term this hostility has intensified, its impact often obscured by the rapid pace of news emanating from the White House. We’re seeing press freedom in the US under attack on three distinct fronts: restricted access to information, threats to the safety of journalists and use of legal pressure to discourage dissenting voices.
Controlling the message
Restrictions began as soon as Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025. Within a month, the Associated Press lost access to the Oval Office and Air Force One (in other words, to direct contact with the president) after refusing to adopt an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.
Accreditation rules soon tightened. In October, the newly minted secretary of war Pete Hegseth announced that henceforth journalists reporting from inside the Pentagon would be allowed to only report official government pronouncements. Many mainstream reporters handed back their Pentagon accreditation in protest. In response, Hegseth announced what he called the “next generation of the Pentagon press corps”, mainly comprising journalist from far-right outlets.
Meanwhile the president’s verbal attacks on journalists have escalated, particularly targeting women and especially women of colour. Incidents such as the “quiet Piggy” remark (directed at Bloomberg journalist Catherine Lucey) exemplify a broader pattern of public humiliation of female journalists. Research suggests that such conduct contributes to the normalisation of hostility toward female journalists, who were already disproportionately quitting journalism.
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‘Quiet piggy’: Donald Trump targets a female reporter on Air Force One.
Journalists covering protests also face heightened risks. During the “no kings” demonstrations in October 2025, multiple incidents were reported in which police used force against accredited reporters. In November 2025 the White House escalated the pressure, launching a “Hall of Shame” site naming journalists and outlets it said had misrepresented the administration.
‘Lawfare’
The Trump administration has also brought considerable legal pressure to bear on the news media over the first year of its second term. The US president has filed multiple lawsuits alleging bias on the part of one or another media organisation that had attracted his disfavour.
In July, Paramount reached a US$16 million (£11.69 million) settlement over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 that the president accused of bias. At stake was a US$8.4 billion merger that required approval from the Federal Communications Commission, a public body headed by Trump loyalist Brendan Carr.
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The president also has active suits against the Wall Street Journal and the BBC (an episode which led to the resignation of director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness). By the middle of 2025, Axios reported that Trump-related media and defamation suits had already matched the annual historical record.
Taken together, these developments reflect a broader pattern of institutional stress affecting US democratic structures. The pressure on these established media organisations has created a situation in which they manage to survive with their independence eroded.
Comparative research consistently demonstrates that journalists are among the first actors targeted in such processes because of their frontline work. Control over information remains central to the success of an authoritarian government.
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What, then, should journalists and media organisations do? Standing together matters. We saw that in 2018, when about 350 American newspapers jointly defended press independence against Trump’s “fake news” attacks. This prompted the US Senate to adopt a resolution supporting a free press and declaring that “the press is not the enemy of the people”.
But the danger is that this structural violence against the news media and its attempt to hold power to account becomes normalised. If the Trump administration’s contempt for the fourth estate continues to percolate through to the public at large, a population already struggling to tell truth from lies will be further blindfolded and darkness will fall over American democracy.
The road is shut to traffic between Junction 18 and Junction 19 (Heywood) and is expected to reopen on Thursday morning.
A National Highways spokesperson said: “The M62 in Greater Manchester is closed eastbound between J18 (M60/ M66) and J19 near Heywood for emergency resurfacing works following a HGV fire which occurred shortly before 06:00 on 10th February.
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“Service providers are in attendance. The closure is expected to remain ongoing throughout the night.”
M62 diversion route:
Drivers are being advised to follow the Hollow Triangle diversion symbols on the road signs: Exit the M62 at J18. At Simister roundabout, take first exit onto M66 clockwise and follow for 3.4km. Exit M66 at J3
At M66 J3, take first exit onto slip road, turn right on Pilsworth Road and follow for 1.3km. At Pilsworth Road/Moss Hall Road Junction, turn right onto Moss Hall Road and follow for 0.4km. At Moss Hall Road/Pilsworth Road Junction, turn left onto Pilsworth Road and follow for 1.1km
At Pilsworth Road/Hareshill Road Junction turn right onto Hareshill Road/Queen Elizabeth Way and follow for 1.9km. At Queen Elizabeth Way/M62 J19 roundabout take the second exit and re-join M62.
Joe Thomas has given an update on The Inbetweeners comeback after creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris bought back the rights to the hit E4 comedy and confirmed they are writing new material
Joe Thomas, best known for playing Simon from The Inbetweeners, has revealed that creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris are “writing something” new for the beloved teen comedy.
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After the E4 coming-of-age series ended in 2010 and the follow-up films in 2011 and 2014 the writers secured an agreement with production company Banijay UK to develop additional Inbetweeners content. Ever since, there has been speculation online discussing a potential comeback for the show.
Now, Joe has offered fans fresh insight into what might be on the horizon for The Inbetweeners. Speaking at The Comedy Rooms, the 42-year-old actor explained: “What has happened is that the people who write The Inbetweeners a while ago sold the rights to a larger entity, and they recently bought them back so they can make some more.
“I’m really excited. I don’t know what they’re doing. I just know they’re writing something, and I would really love to do it.
“That’s pretty much it. I hope there’s more because I’ve not got that much else to do! I do like The Inbetweeners as well.” For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter
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The Fresh Meat star mentioned that fans frequently yell catchphrases from The Inbetweeners at him on the street – including references to Simon’s love interest Carli D’Amato (Emily Head).
He added: “Well yeah. People shout ‘Carly’ and things like that. One time I was playing football with Simon Bird who plays Will, and someone just shouted out ‘Your mum’s a c***’. That’s not a line from the show, that’s just rude.”
Thomas appeared alongside Simon Bird (Will McKenzie), James Buckley (Jay Cartwright) and Blake Harrison (Neil Sutherland) throughout The Inbetweeners’ three E4 series and both films.
The quartet reunited in the 2019 special The Inbetweeners: Fwends Reunited, during which they looked back on the show’s enduring impact.
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In October 2025, Beesley and Morris revealed they were developing fresh content for The Inbetweeners.
The duo told The Sun newspaper: “It’s incredibly exciting to be plotting more adventures for our four favourite friends (ooh, friends).”
Whilst the precise direction for The Inbetweeners’ future remains unclear, it has been confirmed the IP may return “across a range of platforms, including film, TV and stage”.
Authorities have released the audio of an emergency call made by a 13-year-old boy who swam for hours to save his family after they were swept out to sea.
Austin Appelbee, his mother, brother and sister, from Perth, were on an inflatable kayak and paddleboards when they got into difficulty off the west coast of Western Australia.
Mum Joanne Appelbee, 47, asked her son to swim around 4km (2.5miles) to shore – where he then ran 2km to find a phone he could use to call the emergency services.
Image: Austin Appelbee. Pic: ABC/AP
With Ms Appelbee’s permission, the Western Australia Police Force has released the audio of Austin’s call, on which he can be heard calmly explaining the life-threatening situation.
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“Hello, my name is Austin and I’m outside [the] beach,” he says, before explaining that he has two siblings, brother Beau, aged 12, and sister Grace, eight.
“We went out on a kayak trip and a paddleboard trip, and we got took out to sea and we got lost out there,” he continues.
“We got lost around about, I don’t know what time it was, but it was a very long time ago. You know, we couldn’t get back to shore and mum told me to go back and get help, and then I haven’t seen them since.”
Austin then suggests: “I think we need a helicopter to go find them.”
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Teen swims 4 kilometres to save family
“I’m sitting on the beach right now, and I have to explain, I think I need an ambulance because I think I have hypothermia,” he adds.
When the emergency services operator checks that they have the correct information, Austin admits being “really scared” and explains: “I had a kayak, and then I had a bunch of water in it.
“It started to sink and I kept on, like, falling off it. So I decided to ditch the kayak and I decided to take off my life jacket, and I had to swim around about four kilometres facing the current.
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“And like I’m really, I’m extremely tired. I think I have heatstroke and I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m very dizzy.”
Image: Austin Appelbee (right) with his family in Gidgegannup, Australia. Pic: ABC/AP
After Austin’s call, a multi-agency search and rescue response was coordinated and his family members were located clinging to a paddleboard at about 8.30pm local time – 10 hours after they had entered the water.
They were then safely brought back to shore by a volunteer marine rescue vessel.
WA Police Force has praised Austin for “his composure and ability to make critical decisions”, with Forward Commander Acting Sergeant Andrew McDonnell adding: “What Austin did was nothing short of extraordinary.
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“His bravery and courage in those conditions were remarkable, and his actions were pivotal in bringing about a successful outcome.”
Jeff Narvil, 58, from Mississippi, dedicated 14 months to learning Welsh independently before travelling to Cardiff University to sit his exam
A judge from the United States travelled 4,000 miles to sit a Welsh-language exam in Cardiff. Jeff Narvil, 58, from Jackson, Mississippi, has devoted the past 14 months to learning Welsh in his free time.
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The administrative law judge learned the language mostly on his own using apps, textbooks and online resources. In January he made the journey to Cardiff University to take the A1 language exam which tests reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
On his Welsh studies, Jeff said that the more effort he put in the more he enjoyed it. “I enjoyed it, or I would have quit, because nobody made me do this,” he said.
“It was 100% voluntary, and there are many languages, and there are many other things to do with your free time. But the more time I put into it the more I enjoyed it. Then the experience of finally getting to go to Wales.
“I planned it so that I could experience the country for the week before the exam, and I loved the few brief times I got to practice with somebody.
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“I really enjoy trying to read the road signs, or read things at the restaurant. That, to me, was very entertaining, and people smiled and made it worth it.”
Besides Welsh, Jeff completed the European A2 levels in French, Spanish, and German and the A1 in Italian and Irish. He explained he has maintained a longstanding fascination with language and history.
He first encountered the Welsh language 15 years ago whilst studying Irish and various Celtic languages. As daily commitments increased, it wasn’t until late 2024 when seeking to learn another language that he chose to pursue Welsh.
“Welsh came to mind as something that I thought would be, in fact, very different and unusual,” he said. “I thought it was a great connection to my love of travel, and my love of my ancestors, and British history – and I have no regrets. I have really enjoyed the time that I spent on it.
“One of the attractions about studying Welsh is that there was an exam that was available, and having that deadline is very motivating sometimes. Knowing that I had to be ready by the end of January to do that.”
As someone who taught himself, apps, textbooks and digital resources proved essential, though he acknowledged the shortage of practice partners in the US presented challenges.
He recalled: “I did not take any lessons online. The only online class that I took was where the teacher was to prepare for the exam, which was a four-hour class, one week before the exam.
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“I had to get up at 3am in order to do that, because of the time change I’m six hours behind Wales. I did Duolingo every day for over a year, I read some books about the history of the Welsh language.”
The time difference presented an additional obstacle, with certain online courses timetabled for the early morning hours in Mississippi.
“I would like to have taken the language course, because I do think they do a great job,” Jeff said. “It’s just that with a time change, it’s very difficult and with my work schedule.
“I would recommend other people do the class, though, because, especially living in Mississippi, there’s zero opportunity to speak to somebody who knows Welsh.
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“Nobody can correct my pronunciation if I learnt it incorrectly. It would have been much better in hindsight for me to hire a tutor or something like that online.”
He said: “I made the best of it. I made a complete circle around Wales. I went to all three national parks. I visited several castles.
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“I love genealogy, and my partner and I, we’re both very, very great grandchildren of King Edward, so we went to visit some of his castles and I loved all that.”
He also seized the opportunity to practise his Welsh with locals, including shop assistants and café workers.
Jeff said people were supportive and understanding when he mentioned he was studying the language. Despite not yet knowing his exam results, he said the experience had already fulfilled its purpose.
“It’d been a long time since I was in a university classroom but it brought back a lot of good memories. I cannot believe how encouraging everybody’s been about the exam.
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“It’s been overwhelming, and it’s been very, very positive, and it really makes me want to continue to study Welsh.
“But I’m going to wait to see how I do on these exams. If I failed it I don’t know that I can do much better in the future without courses or speakers.
“But if I passed it then maybe I could continue to go a little further beyond day one.”
Jeff’s exam results are anticipated in early March.
