Tom Felle, University of Galway
Media freedom has long been essential to healthy democracy. It is the oxygen that fuels informed debate, exposes corruption and holds power to account. But around the world, that freedom is under sustained attack.
Eva Marquis, University of Exeter and Karen Hudson-Edwards, University of Exeter
On February 18, contamination in the Kafue river, Zambia, led to a mass death of fish. Its water turned a deathly grey and adjacent farmland was poisoned. The drinking water it supplied to half a million residents of the town of Kitwe was suddenly cut off.
The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42% in 2015)
and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers, according to research by The Reading Agency.
Rebecca Brown, University of Oxford
Parents frequently lie to their children. “No, you can’t have any chocolate – it’s all gone,” when there’s a jumbo bar of Dairy Milk in the cupboard. “No, you can’t have my phone to watch YouTube – the battery’s flat,” when it’s at a solid 65%.
Michael Rees, Nottingham Trent University
Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch recently caused controversy by claiming that while she was born to a middle-class family, she “became working class” when working in McDonald’s to earn money while she was in college. In fairness to Badenoch, having a diversity of experience is an admirable attribute for an MP – something you wouldn’t associate with someone like recently deposed Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg for example.
Justin Stebbing, Anglia Ruskin University
The search for alcohol hangover cures is as old as alcohol itself. Many cures and remedies are sold, but scientific evidence for their effectiveness is lacking.
Oliver Heath, Royal Holloway University of London and Humphrey Southall, University of Portsmouth
As the country gears up for the election, all eyes are on the bellwether constituencies that historically reflect the broader national mood.
Daniel Kelly, Sheffield Hallam University
In terms of men’s health issues, prostate cancer features high on the agenda. It’s the second most diagnosed cancer in men globally – closely followed by lung cancer. And it’s the most common cancer in men in the UK.
Mike Cook, King’s College London
OpenAI’s new “strategic partnership” and licensing agreement with the Financial Times (FT) follows similar deals between the US tech company and publishers such as Associated Press, German media giant Axel Springer and French newspaper Le Monde.
Christopher Strelluf, University of Warwick
In response to a community petition, Tower Hamlets council in east London has designated Cockney as a “community language”. This recognition paves the way for the borough to actively challenge the linguistic discrimination that speakers of “non-standard” English dialects face.