Twenty-five years ago this week, I wrote an article for The Times. About terrorism. It appeared on the morning of 9/11, hours before the attacks on the Twin Towers took place.

In my piece, I argued that people in the West were facing an onslaught from totalitarians who were – mind, heart and soul – opposed to our way of life.

They wanted to eradicate the means by which a free society could continue to exist. A campaign was being conducted which had only one aim – annihilation.

Of course, those behind the violence utilised historic grievances and real injustices to rally support for their cause. But this was a cynical appropriation of suffering to advance fanaticism.

And the terrorists wanted to make the West feel a disabling guilt about resisting their claims. They were succeeding, as politicians, including in Britain, tried to appease them. But, I maintained, if we continued to show weakness in the face of terror, the terrorists would only be emboldened to escalate.

Even though my column appeared on that fateful Tuesday in September, it was not a prediction about what might happen to the US.

It was an analysis of what was happening to Israel. That country, I reported, was in the front line of a fight against a terrorist onslaught which was only growing. I had no idea my fears would become horrific reality in such terrible terms so soon.

I thought about that article again this week. And only partly because of the 9/11 anniversary. What really brought it to mind was the welcome for Ed Miliband’s decision to sanction Israel. From Hamas.

A hijacked plane crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, while the North Tower is burning

Hamas – the same organisation whose members danced in the streets 25 years ago to celebrate the massacre of the innocents in New York. Hamas, whose killers were responsible, on October 7 2023, for the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Hamas, whose whole existence is dedicated to the erasure of the existence of any Jewish homeland.

For those who believe in terror, embrace violence and hate the West, Tuesday was another day of celebration. Another day when the West weakened democracy in its fight against fanaticism, accepted the propaganda of those who wish to weaken us, and lowered our resistance to the extremists who hate our way of life.

And while Hamas and its allies celebrated, others mourned. And warned of more mourning to come.

The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis responded to Ed Miliband’s Hamas-approved sanctions announcement with sadness, saying: ‘The measures announced amount to little more than political flag-bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric and those who harbour a dangerous obsession with the Jewish state. These measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.’

Sir Ephraim knows only too well how the toxic campaign to demonise Israel, to dehumanise Jewish lives, to depict the world’s only Jewish state as an incubator of evil, a home of child-killers and a uniquely wicked renegade entity, has become the driver here in Britain of increasingly ugly and violent anti-Semitism.

Fine minds in the Foreign Office may argue they are drawing a delicate distinction in their sanctions regime against settlers in the West Bank and Israelis elsewhere.

But what the world sees is not a finely tuned and careful tilting of the diplomatic scales but another step along the path I warned of 25 years ago – an acceptance of the extremists’ desire to make Israel a weakened, friendless, pariah and an emboldening of them to extend their campaign against the whole West.

When I was in Government I sought to bring in measures to stop the singling out of Israel for punitive measures. I was concerned that the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was not a movement for peace but a weapon directed against the world’s only Jewish state.

The founders of that campaign were clear they did not believe in a two-state solution, their principal aim was the delegitimisation of Israel, and if Palestinian prosperity suffered along the way, so be it. Ed Miliband says he doesn’t support the BDS campaign but he is implementing the measures they want against the country they hate in the hope that Israel gives in to external pressure.

For decades now the Foreign Office and like-minded appeasers across the globe have argued that Israel must surrender territory if it is to have security. It must give up land for peace.

But that, I argued 25 years ago, was what we told the Czechs they must do at Munich in 1938.

And that ‘peace process’ brought neither security to the Czechs nor salve to our conscience, but only encouragement to evil.

Again and again, Israel has sought a peace with its neighbours only for extremists to make clear that they are not interested in a viable Palestinian state.

They want the extinction of the Jewish state.

And every time we make concessions, or give encouragement to the extremists by placing pressure on Israel to yield, to retreat, to drop its sword, the extremists’ ardour only grows.

And we experience the tragic consequences here at home. Our Government responded to the massacre on October 7 by granting diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian state which is Hamas’ immediate goal.

Ed Miliband says he doesn’t support the BDS campaign but he is implementing the measures they want against the country they hate, writes Michael Gove

Advertisement

Protestors take part in a demonstration outside Downing Street organised by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, one week after the Manchester synagogue attack

The signal was sent – once more – that killing Jews would lead the West to retreat. So Jews were increasingly targeted worldwide. Including on our streets. Jews killed at a synagogue in Manchester, Jewish ambulances firebombed in London, Jewish citizens assaulted in broad daylight.

This is not just a moral stain on our nation. It is a steadfast refusal to learn from the crimes of the past. It’s an ironclad law of history that countries which are descending into darkness are those which are becoming progressively more unsafe for Jewish individuals and the Jewish community – the Spain of the Inquisition, the Vienna of the 1900s, Germany in the Thirties, Russia in the last decade.

It is a parallel law that those countries in which the Jewish community has felt most safe at any time are the countries where freedom and progress is most secure at any time. The Netherlands of the 17th century. Britain in the first decades of the last century. America in the second half of that century.

So when Jewish people are under threat, all our freedoms are threatened. The safety of the Jewish community is the canary in the mine. Growing anti-Semitism is a fever which weakens the whole body politic. It is a mark of a society turning to darkness and in on itself.

In its heart, the Government knows this. That is why, when Ed Miliband announced his sanctions regime on Tuesday he also stated that there was enhanced spending on security for Jewish schools, community groups and synagogues.

He was acknowledging, without accepting honestly, that singling out Israel for condemnation in this way on the world stage would mean Jews being singled out on our streets for attack.

And history reminds us that what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. Anti-Semitism is the dark furious energy behind the worst extremism of Left and Right, the extremism which opposes Western enlightenment values and wants to destroy the democratic freedoms which have underpinned the West’s success.

We have seen anti-Semitism grow in force and wicked attraction on the extreme Left, with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and now Zack Polanski’s Greens promoting anti-Israel rhetoric that soon becomes straightforward Jew hate. And it is growing, too, on the other extreme.

Former British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin has appeared on podcasts hosted by Islamist propagandists to share their anti-Semitic prejudices. Keyboard warriors of the online Right trade increasingly hateful conspiracy theories, with activists supporting Rupert Lowe’s Restore party attacking Reform and the Tories for being in hock to the ‘Jewish lobby’.

What their activities reveal is that so much of the ire directed against Israel is not for what it does – but for what it is. The extremists hate the fact that Israel is an open, democratic, successful society which gives all its people – Arab and Jew; Christian, Muslim and of no faith – a more prosperous and secure existence than any state in the region, from the Atlantic shore of Morocco to the mountains of the Hindu Kush.

For the extreme Left this is a denial of their belief that capitalism is only successful owing to centuries of imperial exploitation. Because Israel is a state itself composed of asylum-seekers and refugees, who have built a hugely successful free market economy without the blessings of any natural resources, it is a standing rebuke to their anti-Western obsessions.

For the extreme Right, Israel’s open, pluralist culture, with massive Gay Pride Marches in Tel Aviv and raucous democratic dissent, is an affront to their anti-liberal ideology.

And, of course, for Islamists, Israel is an obstacle to their desire to see the world governed by a totalitarian interpretation of their faith with sharia governing every human interaction. The fact that Muslim and Christian Arab Israelis enjoy rights and opportunities greater than anywhere in the Arab world is a crime against their bleak and austere world view.

Of course, because Israel is a democracy, governed by fallible men and women, it makes mistakes. Sometimes grave ones. There are politicians in Israel’s current government who have said wicked things and committed wrongful acts. We should not shy away from criticising them. Often in forceful terms.

But the sins of Israel’s politicians, and political system, pall in comparison to the murderous acts of totalitarian regimes like China with whom we continue to trade generously and co-operate happily. The message to the rest of the world is again clear. Antagonists with muscle and the ruthlessness to use it against the West will be appeased. And we will not stand steadfast by the state which has been most consistently in the front line against terror – Israel.

The consequences for us, history indicates, will not be kind.

Weakness is always more provocative than strength. The abandonment of those whom we have said are our allies leaves us not further from our enemies’ reach but more tempting targets than before. That was our experience of appeasement in the Thirties. And also the lesson of our scuttle from Afghanistan five years ago, which encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine and test the West’s solidarity.

In concrete terms, Israel provides us not just with a forward bulwark against extremism but a defence and intelligence partner whose technology and expertise has daily made us safer. We have impaired that relationship, and as defence sources have confirmed, weakened our own protections.

But arguably even worse, in moral and strategic terms we have confirmed what Osama bin Laden believed 25 years ago. People will look to see who is the strong horse and who the weak horse and they will follow the strong horse.

In Russia and in China they apply the same cruel realpolitik logic in different terms.

They live by Lenin’s dictum – push in the bayonet, and if you encounter steel, withdraw, if you encounter mush, push on.

The question for all of us in democracies and across the West is existential. Twenty five years after we were tested as never before, do we still have the steel to resist?

• Baron Gove of Torry is a Conservative peer and editor of The Spectator, spectator.com

Cat owners have shared their delight after learning why their pets make biscuits next to them – and the Blue Cross has seconded the adorable insight into feline behaviour

Cat owners may notice their pets doing something rather strange when they’re relaxed – pushing their paws against blankets, beds or even their owner’s lap.

The adorable habit is often known as “making biscuits”, but one TikTok creator claims to have the answer as to why cats do it. The channel Chip and Manx shared a video explaining possible reasons behind the behaviour, starting with something cats learn when they’re kittens. They said: “The first reason to stimulate milk production from their mother. Kittens will often push their paws against their mother’s belly while nursing in order to stimulate the flow of milk.”

The TikTok user went on to say that kneading can also be a sign of comfort and contentment, as cats will often make biscuits against a soft surface when they’re feeling happy and relaxed.

They added it could be a way for cats to show their love, with some pets kneading against their owner’s lap or chest as a way of expressing affection or marking their territory.

But there could also be a more practical explanation, as kneading may help cats stretch and exercise the muscles in their paws and legs.

Finally, the TikTok creator suggested that cats could knead as part of their grooming routine, using the movement to remove excess fur from their paws.

But what do the experts say?

It’s a habit from kittenhood

According to animal charity Blue Cross, kneading is a behaviour that begins when cats are young and dependent on their mother for food.

Kittens knead their mother’s stomach while feeding to encourage milk to flow from the teat into their mouths.

This could also explain why some cats dribble while they’re making biscuits – they may be associating the familiar kneading motion with feeding from their mother.

It can show affection

If your cat likes to knead your lap while you’re cuddling them, it could be a sign they feel safe and secure around you.

Blue Cross says the behaviour may remind them of the comfort they experienced with their mother as kittens.

Unfortunately for your legs, this can mean the happier your cat is, the harder they knead.

They could be making their bed

Kneading isn’t necessarily reserved for cuddles, either, as some cats will do it before settling down for a nap.

Blue Cross says this could be linked to an instinct inherited from wild cats, who would press down long grass to create a comfortable spot to sleep.

Your experience

Commenting on this revelation, one cat owner said: “I have two cats a kitten and a cat the kitten does it to his brother.”

Another added: “My cat has never made biscuits – like ever. He’s 4.”

A third said: “No. They do it because the bakery opens at 6am.”

The summer before starting university can be a time of multiple worries for students. Worry about obtaining a place on your desired course. Worry about navigating clearing to confirm your place. Worries about securing accommodation, sorting student finance, preparation for academic studies and even finding the right stationery are also common.

Yet many students’ biggest concern is social in nature: “will I make friends?”. Surveys consistently suggest that loneliness and belonging are major concerns for new students starting university. This challenge isn’t unique to shy or socially anxious students. Most freshers experience worries about fitting in and making connections when starting university, especially when others make it seem so easy.

Something I find in my research with colleagues is how poor we are at estimating others’ beliefs, feelings and behaviour. We also overestimate how much other people notice our own behaviour and any social missteps.

In social psychology, there are two related psychological biases that can explain this pattern. First, the “spotlight effect” explains how we wrongly assume that other people are paying attention to our behaviour. Psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Kenneth Savitsky, who have studied this effect, state that people assume the “social spotlight” shines more brightly on themselves than it actually does.

The other bias, the “illusion of transparency”, explains how people wrongly assume that others can view our feelings, worries and thoughts. In essence, we think that our internal state leaks out socially, and we overestimate how much others will harshly judge us as a result.

So, when we perceive an introduction to a new person to be awkward, forget someone’s name, run out of things to say or generally feel embarrassed after a conversation, it is likely that our perception of these interactions doesn’t match the other person’s. That’s assuming other people even paid much attention in the first place. For students starting university, this means many perceived social failures are largely invisible to others.

The surprising psychology of first conversations

Evidence also suggests people routinely underestimate how much they are liked after speaking with strangers. This is another psychological phenomenon, the “liking gap”. We might think that other people like us less than they actually do (the actual liking gap), or we like a conversation partner more than we think they like us back (a perceived liking gap).

It can be difficult to really know how well a conversation with a stranger has gone. Conversations can be cognitively demanding, requiring us to concentrate and listen to the other person, while following social conventions and expectations around politeness. We might miss key social cues about how the other person is feeling during interactions. As a result, we are often left to estimate how well the conversation went. These estimates are often more self-critical and uncertain than the reality.

After conversations, people tend to think they made a worse impression than they actually did. Students may stop pursuing potentially successful friendships because they wrongly assume initial conversations went badly, or underestimate others’ interest in making conversation.

Small talk matters

Small talk is often wrongly dismissed as being unimportant and superficial. But engaging in small talk can have a number of positive benefits. It creates a sense of familiarity with others, that familiarity promoting trust and liking, and it contributes to improved wellbeing and strengthening social bonds. Small talk is not the opposite of meaningful conversation. Actually, this is often the first step towards more meaningful interactions, developing social bonds and friendships.

À lire aussi :
Small talk acts like social glue – here’s how to get better at it

I take inspiration from a professor I worked with who moved across the country to start a new job in a brand new city. This professor, who describes herself as shy, made small talk with a woman as they stood waiting to cross the road near the university. This bit of small talk led to a lasting friendship with “Traffic Light Lady”. Even professors find making friends anxiety-provoking. But brief small talk can be the important first step towards establishing social rapport and developing friendships.

Friendship is usually slower than we expect

Surprisingly, friendships take time to develop. An older psychological phenomenon, the “mere exposure” effect, explains how friendships may emerge over time. Simply put, the more we come into contact with an object or a person, the more likely we are to like that object or person over time. So for friendships, meaningful connections may be built through repeated interactions rather than instant chemistry.

For students, if you feel that you haven’t found your people during freshers week, don’t worry. Chances are the people you meet over the subsequent weeks – during lectures, at society meetings, social events or even in the queue for a coffee – are where friendships emerge. In fact, research estimates that it can take between 40-60 hours to develop a casual friendship in the first six weeks after meeting.

Making friends, whether at university or generally in life, takes time and repeated interactions. We often misperceive and overthink how well social interactions have gone. The importance of small talk, finding similar interests and shared experiences, and being patient, can help to build a sense of familiarity, trust and safety.

Psychology suggests that we are often overly harsh and self-critical in our perceptions of our social interactions and how others view us. In reality, friendships often begin not with brilliant conversation, but with ordinary moments repeated over time.

Martin Lewis said it’s worth haggling – and so that’s what I did

I tried Martin Lewis’ haggling method after my broadband issues – and now I have better broadband for less, despite leaving mid-contract.

I’d been with Sky for years. When we moved house, we renegotiated our package because we no longer needed boosters – our flat had thick walls, so the signal used to struggle. Thankfully, we cut costs because we ditched them, but it was still expensive: for basic broadband, we were being quoted close to £50 a month, with no extras or add-ons.

This was too expensive, especially with a council tax rise and higher energy bills on the way. Fast forward to last month, and we had an outage that lasted a couple of weeks, and Sky told us that because of this, we could leave mid-contract and it would waive the early termination fee – phew!

Honestly, we didn’t want the faff of leaving and restarting the switchover, as this often means your bill jumps for the first month or two while everything settles. So we wanted to stay, but when we haggled, Sky said the best they could do was cut our bill by £3 each month – and the “best” part was it would tie us in for another two years.

Advertisement

I don’t know about you, but after an outage, I found the whole two-year contract a tad cheeky. So we told them to continue with our cancellation if that was the best they could offer. And cancelled it was.

Interestingly, Money Saving Expert (MSE), founded by Martin Lewis, have written in their Sky broadband tips blog: “If you’ve had issues with Sky in the past, such as slow broadband or long customer service call waiting times, politely tell them when you haggle. It’s useful ammunition – they should want to try and make it up to you.”

Sadly, they didn’t want to seem to make it up to us and if we’d taken the deal, it would have been around £30 a month for Full Fibre 500 (we already haggled more than tenner off when we moved) – and while that might not sound like a lot to some for broadband users, we’d seen EE offering double our current speed for the same price. That made it a no-brainer, especially because our Sky signal wasn’t great even before the outage – and that’s pretty crucial when working from home.

Now we’re on full-fibre gigabit for the same monthly cost we were paying Sky – and when we tested our download speeds, they’d doubled. Not only is our internet faster, but we can watch videos at what feels like lightning speed, my favourite TV shows don’t randomly buffer, and I don’t have to reconnect my phone every day.

Even if Sky didn’t waive the fee, we still wouldn’t have paid it. Right now, EE says you can “switch from another provider, and we’ll credit your EE account up to £200 towards your leaving fees, or up to £300 if you’re switching TV too.”

How to haggle your broadband cost

The Mirror previously reported that Martin Lewis stressed haggling was about winning over the other person. Customers should never be rude to call centre agents, of course.

He explained: “If you say you are going to leave, a company will often put you through to customer disconnections, where there are the people with the real power and authority to give you discounts and deals which will keep you. If you’re not getting the deal or discount that you want or need, get yourself through to customer disconnections – internally known as customer retentions.”

His advice is to look for the best deal you can get elsewhere before starting to haggle on any service, and ask your current provider to match it. “If you don’t get the deal you want, feel free to ditch and switch,” he added. “We don’t have a right to a cheaper price, I’m afraid, but they don’t have a right to our custom.”

MSE notes that you may find that your Sky customer service rep will only offer a small discount at first, but if you don’t agree with the price, try phrases like:

• “I’ve worked out my budget, and my absolute max is £[insert price here]/mth.”
• “[BT/Plusnet/TalkTalk/Virgin Media] can do it for less.”
• “I need to think about it.”
• “I think my other half will go bonkers if I pay that.”
• “It’s still a lot of money.”
• What’s the very best you can do? “

We used the “what’s the very best you can do?” as you know, £3 for another two years isn’t exactly a win, especially when there’s better deals out there.

Michael McIntyre on the phone, during the BGC annual charity day at their offices in Canary Wharf, London, held each year in commemoration of BGC’s 658 colleagues and the 61 Eurobrokers employees lost on 9/11. On Charity Day, 100% of BGC Group’s global revenues are donated to the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund and other charities around the world. (Yui Mok/PA)

PA Wire

Kynren – The Storied Lands, County Durham’s new live-action show park, is a finalist at the 2026 Park World Excellence Awards, competing against leading attractions from across Europe and beyond.

It has been nominated for Best Regional Park, Best Live Entertainment, and Best Marketing, standing alongside attractions such as Puy du Fou España, Walibi Belgium, Bellewaerde, and Doha Quest.

Anna Warnecke, chief executive at Kynren, said: “Opening The Storied Lands was always going to make 2026 a very special year for Kynren, but to receive three nominations in our first season is something everyone involved can be extremely proud of.

“What is particularly pleasing is the breadth of the recognition.

“We have been shortlisted for the park itself, for one of our new live shows, and for the work which has gone into telling people about this new dimension to the Kynren experience.”

The Storied Lands is the UK’s first live-action show park and the most significant addition to the site since Kynren – An Epic Tale of England was first performed 10 years ago.

Among the nominations, The Lost Feather has been shortlisted for Best Live Entertainment.

The bird show features hundreds of birds in free flight above and around a 2,500-seat arena and is staged in a nest-shaped arena.

READ MORE: Tribute to ‘loving’ grandad who died in A1(M) crash on way back from family trip
READ MORE: Funeral of ‘so full of fun’ officer killed in A66 crash held today as tribute paid
READ MORE: ‘Mr Haughton’ remembered after lifetime serving Darlington as councillor and mayor

A spokesperson for Kynren said the experience is “built around natural behaviours, with birds flying freely above, across and around the arena, emerging from the surrounding landscape and passing close above spectators.”

The Park World Excellence Awards, established in 2018, recognise the leading attractions, experiences, projects, products and people across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Winners will be announced at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London on Wednesday, September 23.

Mary Berry’s roast potato recipe is a five-star rated dish that adds a 12p ingredient to achieve perfectly crispy and crunchy roast potatoes

With countless roast potato recipes available online, it can be tricky to determine which one will deliver the finest results. Fortunately, Mary Berry’s five-star rated recipe incorporates a secret ingredient to achieve that all-important extra crunch.

The recipe notes on Good Food said: “A roast potato should be ultra crispy and golden on the outside with a fluffy light middle. Par-boiling and roughing them up before roasting gives a lovely crunchy exterior and the semolina adds an extra crunchy coating.”

This recipe serves six people and takes approximately one hour from start to finish, reports the Express. Here’s how you can recreate the recipe at home.

Roast potatoes

Ingredients

• 1.5kg potatoes, peeled and cut into medium-sized cubes
• 40g semolina
• Four tbsp of goose fat or vegetable oil
• Three thyme sprigs
• Salt

Method

Begin by preheating the oven to 220C or 200C (fan) and place the potatoes in a saucepan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for approximately five minutes, until the edges begin to soften.

Drain in a colander until thoroughly dry, then return to the saucepan and shake to roughen up the edges.

Scatter over the semolina and shake once more until evenly coated. Preheat a large shallow roasting tin in the oven until piping hot.

Add the fat to the tin and heat for around five minutes, or until it begins to smoke.

Carefully add the potatoes, turning them in the fat until fully coated, then scatter over the thyme sprigs.

Return to the oven and roast for approximately 45 to 55 minutes until golden brown and crisp, ensuring you turn them halfway through cooking. The recipe notes stated: “You can prepare the potatoes up to 12 hours ahead of serving.

“The potatoes can be part-roasted for 35 minutes until golden. Then, before serving, roast again in the hot oven for about 20 minutes.”

Semolina is readily available for approximately £1.40 for a 500g bag, and given that just 40g is required per recipe, it remains a highly budget-friendly ingredient.

Audrey Backeberg was 20 years old when she vanished from her family home in 1962 – and was finally confirmed to be “safe and well” decades later

A mum who married her husband at just 15 and then left her two children for over 60 years had a harsh explanation for her disappearance when she finally returned.

Audrey Backeberg’s shocking reappearance astounded the community she disappeared from back in 1962 when she was 20. Audrey was finally confirmed to be “safe and well” in 2025, aged 82.

Police said her disappearance was confirmed to be “by her own choice” and “not the result of any criminal activity or foul play”. On the day she disappeared, she left home to pick up her pay cheque from the woollen mill where she worked.

Her family’s 14-year-old babysitter told authorities she had hitched a ride with Audrey to the city of Madison, Wisconsin, where the pair boarded a Greyhound bus to Indianapolis, Indiana.

When they arrived there, the babysitter got cold feet but Audrey would not go back and she walked around the corner from the bus station – and vanished without trace.

When she was tracked down by a detective six decades into her new life she is said to have told them she had “no regrets.”

According to the Audrey Project, an organisation which documents over 16,000 “cold case” missing persons reports in the US, Audrey had married her husband Ronald Backberg when she was “about fifteen years old” – but had endured a “troubled” marriage surrounded by “allegations of abuse”.

The childminder claimed Audrey had vanished in Indianapolis of her own free will, but this sparked a dispute with members of her family, who “insisted she would never have abandoned her children.”

After more than six decades, answers began to emerge when Sauk County Sheriff’s Office assigned a detective to the cold case earlier this year. Detective Isaac Hanson meticulously sifted through case files and evidence, as well as re-interviewing key witnesses in the case – but it was her sister’s Ancestry.com account that eventually led him to her.

He told local news station WISN: “That was pretty key in locating death records, census reports, all kinds of data. So I called the local sheriff’s department, said, ‘Hey, there’s this lady living at this address. Do you guys have somebody, you can just go pop in?’. Ten minutes later, she called me, and we talked for 45 minutes.”

He added that she seemed to have “moved on from things”, and sounded happy and “confident” in her decision to flee many years ago.

A statement from Sheriff Chip Meister read: “Earlier this year, the case was assigned to a Sheriff’s Office Detective for a comprehensive review as part of an ongoing examination of cold case files. Through diligent investigative work, which included a thorough re-evaluation of all case files and evidence, combined with re-interviewing witnesses and uncovering new insights.

“The Sheriff’s Office is now able to report that Audrey Backeberg is alive and well and currently resides out of State. Further investigation has revealed that Ms. Backeberg’s disappearance was by her own choice and not the result of any criminal activity or foul play.

“The Sheriff’s Office would like to acknowledge the work of Investigators, both past and present. Despite the significant challenges that many cold cases present, this resolution underscores both the importance of continued work and the dedication of the Sheriff’s Office to providing answers to families and the community.”

Hanson said: “I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life. She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets.”

In Barcelona, researchers found further evidence that the bacterium was spreading between people.

Nine cases identified between December 2025 and March 2026 were caused by strains that differed by just zero to four genetic mutations, suggesting the infections were part of a recent transmission chain rather than separate cases acquired from animals.

The bacterium can survive in crusted areas on the skin for up to 42 months, according to Dr McHale, raising questions about the role of contaminated surfaces, equipment and shared spaces.

People should not be alarmed by the infection, which is treatable with a course of antibiotics, he added. 

This could make hygiene particularly important in places such as saunas, where people may have prolonged skin contact with others and with shared surfaces.

Saunas have historically been a destination for gay and bisexual men seeking social and sexual contact.

Dating apps such as Grindr have since made casual encounters in these environments far easier to arrange, experts say. 

“What we’re seeing is the kind of in-person venues like saunas being combined with apps,” said Rusi Jaspal, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Brighton and expert on wellbeing among gay men. 

“Someone might, for example, be in a sauna but also have their app on, and that might be a way of getting people to come to the sauna. So they’re not only attracting people who are already in the sauna, but who might be outside of that environment and coming in.”

Progress and complacency

Professor Jaspal believes the success of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), which protects against HIV, has also played a role. 

“I think that is a really big contributor,” he said. “On the one hand, obviously it’s fantastic that PrEP is there. It prevents HIV; it’s extremely effective against HIV. But it’s not effective against other infections.”

He argued that because PrEP has removed the fear of HIV that shaped gay men’s sexual behaviour for decades, some men are now having condomless sex with more partners, in the belief that other infections are treatable in a way HIV once was not.

“Because they think, well, everything else is treatable – gonorrhoea, syphilis, it’s all treatable – they’re going to just not use condoms,” he said. “That is not only creating more of a risk of infection, but I think people are having more partners as well.”

Sexual contact is not the only route by which the bacterium appears to be spreading.

In Norway, ten cases have been linked to martial arts, with some infections occurring during training in Norway and others during trips to Thailand. 

One case report described a 34-year-old Muay Thai fighter who developed recurrent pustular lesions after returning from a training trip, later confirmed as D. congolensis through whole-genome sequencing.

Dr McHale said the bacterium tends to take hold where the skin has already been compromised in some way.

“Predisposing factors for infection include cutaneous microtrauma, for example, from ultraviolet radiation, tick exposure and insect bites, and maceration of the skin,” he said.

Dermatophilus congolensis is notoriously difficult to grow in culture, meaning infections can easily go undiagnosed or be mistaken for more common skin conditions.

Researchers in Barcelona have warned that cases could be going unrecognised because sexual health clinics do not routinely test for the bacterium.

But Professor Jaspal believes the legacy of the HIV/Aids epidemic explains why this cluster was identified so quickly.

He said the crisis of the 1980s, when confusion and stigma allowed the virus to spread largely undetected, forced public health bodies to build far stronger surveillance and communication systems for outbreaks among gay and bisexual men. 

That same infrastructure, he argued, has since been used to manage subsequent threats such as mpox – and now this obscure bacterium – far more effectively.

“I think we are quite rightly identifying cases early on, so that we can then communicate that risk to people and encourage precautions to protect themselves,” Professor Jaspal said. “That is really, really important.”

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

How is my caffeine habit impacting ageing?

The best way to take your coffee