Have you heard someone say online or in casual conversation, when responding to someone’s struggles, “well, the body keeps the score”?

For many people, this phrase is a useful way to name the physical toll stress and trauma can take when the body is in “fight or flight” mode.

The everyday use of this phrase also demonstrates the extraordinary reach of the 2014 non-fiction book that popularised it, The Body Keeps the Score by Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. But as the idea has spread, it’s also been simplified.

In fact, this book – which has spent almost six years on The New York Times bestseller list – goes beyond arguing that trauma affects the body. It rests on a far more contentious claim: that traumatic memories live in the body, inaccessible to conscious memory.

This idea of repressed memories has a long and controversial history. Here’s why we’re worried it’s making a comeback.

The memory wars

During the 1990s, the idea of repressed memories sparked a major scientific dispute known as the “memory wars”. Clinicians and memory researchers disagreed over whether traumatic events could be completely inaccessible to conscious memory, only to be recovered later in therapy.

The core idea, rooted in psychoanalytic theory, was that traumatic experiences are so overwhelming that the mind unconsciously represses them as a defence mechanism, removing them from conscious awareness while they continue to produce psychological symptoms.

After more than a decade of research raising serious doubts about repression as a reliable mechanism, many believed this debate had been settled.

Yet the idea of repressed memories is returning.

Today, the claim is not only that traumatic memories can be repressed, but that the body stores them. These repressed, stored memories are said to re-emerge later through physical symptoms.

The Body Keeps the Score suggests healing requires “releasing” or “integrating” these hidden memories of trauma through a variety of alternative, often non-evidence-based therapies, such as yoga, pyschedelic-assisted therapy and guided imagery.

Traumatic experiences are further described as disrupting the nervous system in lasting ways – even beyond a person’s conscious awareness or memory of what happened. This argument has shifted public perceptions of trauma.

Trauma and the body

The kind of memory research we do does not deny trauma, nor that it can affect the body. The concern is specifically about how this relates to memory.

There is broad scientific agreement that stress, often associated with traumatic experiences, can alter hormone levels such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, which can then impact other systems of the body. This can elevate blood pressure, affect libido, and influence how safe or unsafe the world feels on a bodily level.

For some people, trauma can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which involves physical symptoms such as nausea, panic attacks, difficulty breathing, trouble sleeping, and feeling exhausted from constantly being “on guard”.

Read more: What do people mean when they say their nervous system is overloaded or needs a reset?

How memory works

Memory doesn’t work like a recording device we can simply “play back”.

Decades of research show that autobiographical memory is reconstructed each time an event is recalled. This means the context we’re in – including new information, our emotions, and other people’s expectations – can influence what we remember. This may distort or alter our memories.

Suggestive therapy techniques – for example, hypnosis or guided imagery, where patients enter a highly suggestible state – are especially prone to implanting false memories.

Major professional organisations, such as the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society have repeatedly warned that these therapeutic techniques designed to recover supposedly buried memories can create false memories.

Everyone seems to be talking about trauma. Do we know more about it? Or has the meaning changed? In this five-part series, we explore the shifting definition of trauma, why talking about it doesn’t always help, and what else can work.

Alternative therapies

The Body Keeps the Score promotes a broad range of therapies for trauma as alternatives to more established PTSD treatments, including yoga and psychodrama, which is the use of roleplay to re-enact the traumatic experience.

Some of these approaches may be helpful for some people. There is no harm in doing yoga if you have PTSD and feel it helps to reduce stress.

However, problems arise when these techniques are claimed to be able to help people “access repressed memories”.

This idea can be exploited. Recent ads on social media suggest nightmares or trouble sleeping could be due to extensive trauma you don’t remember. A quick quiz will deliver your test results and redirect you to a “trauma-informed” online coaching program that you pay for.

What about psychedelics and MDMA?

More recently, van der Kolk and others have turned attention to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Substances such as MDMA and psilocybin have shown promise in tightly controlled research settings. They appear to influence brain pathways, though the mechanisms are not yet fully understood.

From a memory perspective, psychedelics raise specific concerns. Research suggests psychedelics can affect memory in some worrying ways.

They make people more suggestible, meaning they are more likely to accept ideas or stories as true, even when they come from an outside source. They also create a powerful feeling that what people experience is deeply and certainly real.

This is a risky combination, because a person could come away with a false memory they feel convinced has happened.

Early qualitative reports already describe cases in which apparent memories of trauma emerged during psychedelic therapy, with uncertainty about their accuracy.

Recent US research found the vast majority of people endorse belief in repressed memories and the idea that “the body keeps the score”. This research is currently being replicated in Australia, with preliminary findings suggesting these beliefs may be even more widespread over here.

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.

I began teaching Australian literature not long after the death of Alec Derwent (A.D.) Hope (1907-2000). Despite Hope’s canonical status, I – like many – overlooked him, gravitating to writers more engaged with feminist, environmental, postcolonial and decolonial questions, or to those whose poetry was freshly modern, postmodern or experimental. Hope seemed conventional and dated by comparison.

Such assumptions were reinforced by his most anthologised poem, Australia (1943), with its image of the land as menopausal woman:

She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.

And even allowing for its time of writing, this poem’s silence about Australia’s First Peoples presents a barrier for many readers. In short, why bother?

Review: A.D. Hope: A Life – Susan Lever (La Trobe University Press )

Susan Lever’s compelling biography A.D. Hope: A Life asks us to stop and think again. Well aware of what will strike readers as problematic, Lever prompts us to revisit Hope’s writings. Tracing the life, career and achievement of this “grand old man”, the all-but-forgotten poet and professor, Lever documents his contribution to Australian literary culture during a formative period of postwar nation building.

That the biography yields an excellent cultural history is one of its attractions. But even more arresting is what Lever shows about the philosophical reach, formal brilliance and impassioned force of Hope’s poetry.

It’s the poetry that stands at the core of this biography. The poetry speaks into the gaps left, for instance, by embargoed letters. It dramatises the contradictory aspects of Hope’s life as suburban husband and father, as philanderer and poet-professor, as radio broadcaster for children, as savagely caustic reviewer, and as generous mentor to young writers.

The reverse is also true: we see how the paradoxes shaping his intellect, passions, views and desires are imprinted within and generative of the poetry. This is apparent in both the poetry’s formal design and its content.

Hope’s university education was checkered: a stellar undergraduate career at Sydney, a disappointing third-class honours degree at Oxford, then teacher training. But this period exposed him to psychology, especially Freud, and fostered his love of philosophy, languages and philology. It also inspired his abiding admiration of 17th- and 18th-century poets and satirists like Ben Jonson, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.

Enamoured of this neoclassical literary tradition, Hope resisted the dominant, post-romantic modes and forms of his own time: the personal lyric and free verse. He instead turned towards, and advocated for, the liveliness of discursive forms like the long narrative poem, the satire, the meditation and the epistle.

These, he wrote in his essay The Discursive Mode (1956), allowed for “narrative, drama, excogitation, argument, description”. They were, in other words, forms for thinking with.

The poetry is dark, the poetry is bleak, the poetry is funny, the poetry is joyful. And it is disciplined. Inhabiting a variety of older forms and modes, the poetry is always precise, metrically controlled and rhymed.

At the same time, Hope makes his verses think and speak. His poems voice ideas and questions, canvassing matters that still press on us today:

Go tell those old men, safe in bed,
We took their orders and are dead.

(Inscription for a War, 1971)

Returning to the poetry, we discover that Hope’s invocation and remodelling of traditional forms – of classical, biblical and mythical scenes, and of 17th- and 18th-century texts – is what makes his poetry modernist in form and spirit.

Darkness and bawdiness

Lever’s biography takes us from Hope’s idyllic childhood in Tasmania to his old age as the “great panjandrum of Canberra” (in Patrick White’s vengeful phrase).

In Lever’s telling, productive antinomies recur. Poems drawn from childhood, such as Ascent into Hell and Observation Car from his collection The Wandering Islands (1955), are haunted by darkness and existential dread.

Observation Car recalls a train journey away from home. Not unlike Walter Benjamin’s backward-gazing angel of history, the poet is spellbound, transfixed by receding time as the train hurls him relentlessly onward:

Only the past is assured. From the observation car
I stand looking back and watching the landscape shrivel,
Wondering where are we going and just where the hell we are.

Yet Observation Car also contains images that objectify women’s bodies, a pattern that recurs elsewhere in Hope’s poetry. His bawdy verse satires, penned during and beyond his student years, together with his ongoing preoccupation with sexuality, earned him the nickname of “Phallic Alec”.

In his more serious and sophisticated poems, like The Double Looking Glass (1963), women’s bodies are still subject to the male gaze. Even so, as implied by its title, the looking glass is double, refracting many layers.

Lever is not an apologist. But her account persuades us that at least some of these poems dramatise intense struggles with masculinity, sexuality and desire. “Readers do not need to look far to find patriarchal positions or failures of taste in Hope’s poetry,” she writes, “but his best work examines sexuality in a way that reveals the poet’s own struggles to understand it.”

Hope’s poetry can be read both ways at once: as objectifying and as self-implicated. And though Lever chooses not to dwell on gossip, her account shows the importance of Hope’s various love affairs for his poetry.

Hope’s sensibility, Lever suggests, aligned with that of a key cohort of mid-century writers, internationally and across the political spectrum, who felt “that a return to tradition in art was essential to preserving social order”. This suggestion doesn’t dislodge, but it does reframe, Hope’s reputation as conservative and out of date.

At the same time, the biography highlights the lucidity and feeling of his poetry’s response to the modernity of his own time, and perhaps ours.

One of Hope’s recurring questions concerns the role of the poet in secular, scientific modernity. Inspired by the University of Sydney philosopher John Anderson, Hope soon shed the religiosity of his Presbyterian upbringing for atheism and scientific materialism. But the biography unfolds a paradox: in life and in poetry, he sought spiritual meaning that might square with science.

For Hope, poetry, like music, is sourced in mystery. This is dramatised, for instance, in his polyphonic poem, Vivaldi, Bird and Angel, Or, Il Cardinello (1972):

Somewhere beyond this frame of natural laws,
Moving in time on its predestined grooves,
I hear another music to which it moves.
Wherever I go, whatever I do, I seem
To step in time to that resistless stream
And though, I trust, a rational man, I vow
I heard it as a child, I hear it now;
With every year I live, it sounds more clear,
More vast, more jubilant to the inward ear;
Beyond my power to imagine or invent
That choir of being, or this sole instrument
Of my response to that invisible world.

The Australianness (or not) of Hope’s poetry is, thankfully, not at issue in Lever’s biography. We are reminded, too, of Hope’s impatience with hackneyed settler tropes of the bush. This rejection of parochialism seems yet another mark of his modernity.

With publication of The Wandering Islands, his late-arriving first book of poetry, Hope won international as well as national recognition. Even so, Lever’s biography registers the consequences of Australia’s distance from the literary centres of London and New York.

Hope’s poetic mode runs in tandem with that of other poets of his time, notably with the work of W.H. Auden. Lever does not argue, in line with some earlier commentators, that Hope was influenced by Auden. But her biography assures us that he did read Auden’s poetry, along with that of many of his contemporaries.

Hope’s poetry is both like and unlike Auden’s “iceberg verse”: it is “tidy” like Auden’s, and metrically disciplined, even clinical, but it is neither “cold” nor “oblique”.

Persistence, poise and acumen

Reading Lever’s account makes it clear that, despite difficulties, interruptions and constraints, Hope’s academic life and poetry wove together. His public lectures and literary essays, his outreach through teaching and broadcasting, his sometimes vexed networks, his friendships with the literary luminaries of his day (Douglas Stewart, James Macauley, Judith Wright, Leonie Kramer, Rosemary Dobson, James Macauley, among many others) and with politicians and prime ministers – all this put Hope at the centre of Australian literature in the cultural heyday of its study and professionalisation.

That this is the first biography of Hope, appearing more than two decades after his death, borders on shocking. It is a gift for which we should be grateful, especially given the precarity, in these “job-ready” days, of literature – let alone Australian literature – as a subject of university teaching and scholarly investment.

Taking on such a project against the odds required persistence, fortitude, poise and critical acumen. These are the very qualities that make Lever’s biography shine. Clear eyed about her subject, she is intelligently sensitive to Hope’s life; she shows us the brilliance of his poetry’s form and language, and the liveliness of its thought and feeling.

Returning to Hope’s poetry after reading the biography, I found much to enjoy and admire. The late poem A Swallow in the House (1991), for example, describes a familiar situation in order to generate a question of startling applicability today. The bird, trapped inside the house, is baffled by the transparency of the window. The familiar “yielding element” suddenly “becomes a wall”. And so:

We drop bewildered, not knowing why we fall.
What in my house, what perhaps in my century
Waits to baffle us all? We can only wait and see.

The poem recognises our blinkered presentism. Gesturing to things invisible yet in plain sight, it prompts us to ask what we, in the common sense of our contemporary moment, might fail to see, understand or appreciate.

Brigid Rooney 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 teenager scrolls through their phone at the dinner table, barely looks up and answers questions with one-word replies. For many adults, that image has come to stand for a larger fear: that today’s young people are disconnected from others and may be uninterested in the world around them. Concerns about declining civic participation often deepen that worry.

As researchers who study adolescent development, we believe this picture is incomplete. Adults help shape the environments in which young people learn to contribute, or learn not to. In worrying that young people are disengaged from participating in civic society, adults may overlook both their own role in fostering engagement and the many ways young people are already contributing.

Youth civic and community engagement matters because it helps build skills, relationships and habits of participation that carry into adulthood. How do teens actually express their care for the world around them, and what helps them to do so?

What does engagement really look like?

When adults talk about “engaged” teens, they often picture a narrow set of activities: volunteering, joining clubs, leading student government, maybe attending a rally or organizing a fundraiser. Those forms of contribution to society matter. But they are not the whole story.

In two recent studies, we surveyed 723 American adolescents, with an average age of 15, to understand what predicts whether teens will contribute to society and what their contribution looks like.

In the first study, we identified four distinct patterns: Some teens were generally less engaged; this group represented 21% of our sample. Another 19% we called “Digital Advocates,” highly active online but less involved in face-to-face settings. A third group, 33% of our sample, we termed “Local Helpers,” more engaged in interpersonal and community-based helping. “Contributors” were our fourth profile type, making up 26% of our sample; they reported high engagement across all domains.

Our finding pushes back against a common adult assumption that “real” engagement has to look a certain way. It doesn’t. A teen sharing information online about where local families can access food assistance and a teen quietly checking in on a struggling friend are both contributing – just differently. Digital participation is not automatically shallow; for many young people, online spaces are where they learn about issues, form opinions and connect with others who share their concerns.

Crucially, these profiles were shaped less by demographics – age, gender or race and ethnicity – and more by whether our teen respondents had the personal and contextual supports that helped them act on what they cared about.

What supports adolescent contribution?

In our second study, we found that more-engaged young people reported higher levels of hope, purpose and critical consciousness, which together help explain why some adolescents are more likely to act on what they care about. Hope is the sense that the future can be better and that you can help make it better. Purpose is a stable sense of direction. Critical consciousness is a teen’s ability to notice and think critically about the social dynamics around them.

We were especially interested to see that purpose mattered not only when it was self-focused – wanting to succeed, build a career and so on – but also when it extended beyond the self, such as wanting to help others or contribute to something larger than one’s own interests.

That may sound obvious, but it has real implications. Adults often tell teens to “get involved” without helping them connect that involvement to a meaningful why. Our findings suggest young people are more likely to contribute when they feel hopeful about the future and when they see their lives as connected to others.

What adults can do

To help young people make a difference, first broaden your definition of contribution. The teenager organizing a school drive, the one helping a neighbor and the one making informative videos about a community issue are all contributing in real ways. Notice these efforts and support them in their chosen contribution.

You can also support adolescents in building the traits that make it easier for them to get involved and make a difference:

• Help young people develop a sense of purpose that goes beyond themselves. Ask questions like: What do you care about? What kind of difference do you want to make? Purpose-driven engagement tends to be more durable than participation that’s driven by obligation.

• Nurture hope. Young people are less likely to act when they feel that nothing will change. Adults can support hope by helping teens see realistic pathways for success and giving them opportunities to speak up or solve real problems in their schools and communities.

• Make space for critical consciousness. After-school programs, classrooms and youth groups can create environments where conversations about social issues are taken seriously and connected to real action. Young people need chances to talk about the world they see – and the world they want.

Teens often make a difference in ways that reflect both what they care about and how they are beginning to understand the world around them. Contributing is about more than just involvement in civic institutions; it can also look like helping a neighbor, speaking up for others or creating social media content that raises awareness about an issue. Instead of expecting teens to be checked out, caring adults can help them develop the skills and resources to contribute in any and all of these meaningful ways.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The US military launched strikes against Iran on June 9 in response to the downing of a US Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz a day earlier. These strikes, which the US military called “a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression”, came after Donald Trump claimed he was in the “final throes of what will be a very, very good deal” to end the war.

Iran swiftly carried out retaliatory attacks of its own. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps branch of Iran’s armed forces says it has struck US bases in Bahrain and Jordan. And it has warned of “even more severe attacks” if the US repeats its strikes.

This episode took place days after Israel and Iran had briefly returned to direct conflict. Triggered by Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where a ceasefire was supposedly in effect, both sides launched various rounds of tit-for-tat strikes before announcing they would halt hostilities.

At first glance, these incidents appear contradictory. Diplomacy is supposed to be the alternative to war and ceasefires are supposed to reduce violence. Yet with the US, Israel and Iran once again exchanging attacks, and as military operations continue in Lebanon despite ceasefire arrangements, diplomacy and conflict increasingly seem to be unfolding simultaneously.

For decades, policymakers assumed that war and diplomacy were distinct phases of international politics. States negotiated until talks broke down, and fighting followed. Eventually, battlefield realities or international pressure pushed adversaries back to the negotiating table. Diplomacy then functioned as an exit ramp from conflict.

The aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war exemplified this model. Sustained diplomatic efforts following the conflict culminated in the 1978 Camp David accords, which laid the groundwork for a definitive peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. This treaty was signed the following year and remains in effect to this day.

However, this model is becoming difficult to recognise, with the Middle East nowadays characterised by a different dynamic. Negotiations between warring parties continue during military confrontations, ceasefires coexist with airstrikes and mediators shuttle between capitals even as threats escalate.

The problem is not that diplomacy is failing. Instead, it is that diplomacy is no longer serving its traditional purpose. Rather than ending conflicts, diplomacy is helping to manage them – a distinction that matters because a conflict that is managed is not necessarily a conflict that is resolved.

Managing conflict

The latest escalations between Israel and Iran, and now Iran and the US, illustrate this dilemma. None of these parties appear to want a full-scale regional war, as the costs would be enormous and the consequences unpredictable. Yet each of them is unwilling to abandon what they see as vital security interests.

Israel views Hezbollah’s military capabilities as a major threat and therefore has a strong incentive to weaken the group. Iran, on the other hand, sees defending Hezbollah as critical to its security because the group serves as a key deterrent against Israel and extends Tehran’s regional influence. And the US struck Iran in an attempt to uphold deterrence and signal that attacks on US personnel and assets would carry consequences.

The result of this is a cycle of calibrated escalation. Military force is used not to secure decisive victory but to signal resolve to adversaries, reassure allies and domestic audiences, and persuade opposing leaders that the costs of further escalation outweigh the potential benefits. Diplomacy, meanwhile, works not to eliminate the underlying dispute but to prevent escalation from spiralling beyond control.

This creates a dangerous equilibrium. When diplomacy functions primarily as a mechanism for crisis management, leaders face less pressure to make the difficult compromises that lasting peace requires. Negotiations can continue indefinitely while violence persists, ceasefires become pauses rather than settlements and conflict becomes chronic.

The old distinction between war and peace is becoming blurred in the Middle East. Rival powers do not move neatly from diplomacy to conflict and back again. Instead, they are operating permanently in the space between the two. This should concern policymakers.

Much of contemporary diplomacy remains based on assumptions that no longer fully apply. Negotiations are often treated as evidence of deescalation, while ceasefires are assumed to signal progress towards peace. Yet neither necessarily tells us much about whether a conflict is actually moving closer to resolution.

The latest exchanges between the US and Iran, as well as Iran and Israel, therefore raise a troubling possibility. The greatest danger may not be that the Middle East slides back into a wider war. It may be that it settles into a condition of permanent confrontation in which violence periodically erupts, diplomacy periodically intervenes and neither fundamentally changes the underlying reality.

For decades, the central challenge of international politics has been how to move from war to peace. The challenge emerging today is different, with negotiators grappling with the much more difficult task of ending a conflict when war and peace are happening at the same time.

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.

Buying groceries at a big supermarket is a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to the early 1900s you would have done your shop in the small, family-owned, butchers, bakeries or greengrocers that lined our high streets.

Now, online shopping, “dark stores” and AI chatbots are helping with your groceries, and supermarkets are adapting. It might sound exciting, or terrifying, but what we’re most interested in is what happens next. Will we trade choice, autonomy and our health for convenience? And will we even have a say when huge corporate profits are at stake?

➡️ Click here to read the full interactive story

Gary Mortimer has received past funding from the Building Employer Confidence and Inclusion in Disability Grant, the AusIndustry Entrepreneurs' Program, the National Clothing Textiles Stewardship Scheme, the National Retail Association and the Australian Retailers Association. He is an independent director and board chair of Services and Creative Skills Australia, a federally-funded jobs and skills council.

Paul J. Maginn 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 truce of sorts has quelled the return-to-office wars that have raged in the post-pandemic workplace.

Hybrid work policies, which require some in-office work while allowing flexibility to work from home, have become commonplace. In 2023, only 20% of companies had implemented hybrid policies. That number had shot up to 38% in 2024 and to 42% in 2025, according to the workplace survey Flex Index.

Hybrid work supporters can point to research suggesting that hybrid policies improve employee retention and decrease turnover. Some human resource professionals agree, citing their personal experience, with some job seekers seeing hybrid work as a bare-minimum expectation as they consider opportunities.

As business scholars who study management and communication technologies, we have discovered a more complicated picture. Our research shows that employees actually have more mixed feelings about hybrid work, with some becoming disillusioned. In fact, a hybrid solution may not always be the sustainable compromise it’s hyped to be.

A changing workplace landscape

We tracked a group of employees from three large companies in the financial services sector starting in 2022. Coming out of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, one company decided to go fully back to the office, one chose to stay fully remote, and one adopted hybrid policies.

In each case, not surprisingly, employees had mixed responses to whatever the policy was. It was clear, though, that the hybrid policy had the fewest fans. While office work was preferred by 50% of employees in the back-to-office company, and remote work by 62% of employees in the fully remote business, only 44% of employees in the hybrid workplace told us they were happy with their company’s policy.

When we checked back with our participants in 2025, it looked like most employees in each company were now on board with their company’s chosen policy: The share of approval rose to 60% for back-to-office, 72% for fully remote and 63% for the hybrid format. Notably, these companies also experienced very low turnover, so the sample of workers remained largely the same.

At first glance, the almost 20-percentage-point jump in the approval rating for hybrid work would suggest it had turned into a golden compromise over time. But a closer look reveals an unstable support base.

In the other two scenarios, all of the employees who preferred in-office or remote work back in 2022 were still on board with their company’s policy in 2025. In contrast, in the hybrid company, only half of those who preferred hybrid in 2022 had the same outlook in 2025. The other half now said they preferred either in-office or remote work. The hybrid policy had gained new support, but it had lost half of its original fans.

Those who now embraced the office spoke about better collaboration and relationship building opportunities. “Because I like my team and my work is somewhat collaborative, I tend to find it more enjoyable and productive to be in most of the time,” said one worker who said their preference changed from hybrid to in-office.

Meanwhile, those who switched to preferring remote work often spoke of personal arrangements as a key driver. “My wife and I have made decisions about childcare based on me being able to work from home,” is how one employee put it.

Sticky versus fluid preferences

The upshot: Back-to-office and fully remote work policies create more durable, or “sticky,” preferences for those respective types of work. In contrast, hybrid policies form preferences that are more fluid.

In our book “The New Workplace,” we explore this divergence through the eyes of employees. One reason the nonhybrid policies create sticky preferences is that they help employees set routines with predictability. And people like predictability in their work and life.

But going to the office every day isn’t just predictable. It offers an added bonus of work-life separation. “I need structure!” was a common refrain we heard from office-preferring participants, who spoke of work and life “bleeding together” without workplace boundaries.

Working remotely every day is predictable in a different way. It offers the added bonus of increased autonomy and freedom. Remote-preferring participants prized their independence so much they described their employer’s remote policy as “golden handcuffs” that kept them there even though they otherwise might leave.

Hybrid policies, in contrast, create competing demands that challenge employees, forcing them to constantly switch between work and home modes. This requires both personal flexibility and adaptability – psychological traits that few people naturally possess.

Even hybrid-preferring employees spoke of having to “train my brain” and “flip my mind” as they tried to adjust to the format’s unpredictability. In the long run, some adapted to hybrid successfully by developing a new skill we called task-location fit. They learned to do focused, heads-down work at home and collaborative work at the office. This was the crowd that remained on “team hybrid.”

But others got tired of trying to adapt to the competing demands of hybrid – what we called paradox management fatigue – and decided either fully in-office or fully remote work was best for them. This fatigue, in the end, is what made the hybrid preference fluid.

“I still value the flexibility to be able to work from home when needed, but I think getting out of a consistent rhythm has made me prefer working in the office,” said one worker who came to appreciate full-time in-office work.

A second reason hybrid policies lose fans is poor implementation. One error, we believe, is when companies hire across geographies. Most participants worked on teams where at least some, if not most, team members were in a different city, state or even country. This defeated the purpose of an in-office requirement, as it effectively required remote team meetings. “I can Zoom from my home,” many participants said.

Another mistake, in our view, is letting employees choose their in-office and remote work days. While this lives up to the flexibility promise of hybrid, it leads to a half-empty office that’s lonely for those who come in.

Furthermore, employees know they’ll find their teammates in the office under a back-to-office policy, or that their teammates will be available online under a fully remote policy. But a “choose-your-adventure” hybrid policy removes the certainty of how, when, and where to reach teammates.

The worst of both worlds?

With these challenges, no wonder Dropbox recently called hybrid work “the worst of both worlds” and declared the company will stay fully remote.

At the same time, given the rising adoption of hybrid work, employers that are jumping on that bandwagon need to figure out how to prove the critics wrong and make hybrid work more sustainable.

For example, employers can implement a structured hybrid schedule by setting one or more days when employees have to come in. While this may sacrifice some personal flexibility, structured hybrid solves the coordination challenges. When everyone’s in the office at the same time, it won’t feel empty – and co-workers will collaborate more smoothly.

Managers can also make the physical office a place of community where people want to be. This means investing in livening up the office.

In our research, participants’ stories were steeped with nostalgia for the days of company picnics, Oscar-style end-of-quarter celebrations, and disco-at-the-office parties. They said they also appreciated the little things, like pizza at the office or a food truck in the parking lot. Participants wished these social activities would come back, even with a hybrid work schedule.

Finally, companies can better align hiring and team design practices. Hiring across geographies allows locally unavailable talent to join the ranks. But geographically dispersed teams aren’t hybrid – they’re fully remote. To solve this contradiction, managers should assign employees to teams based on geographic location. When that’s not possible, they should provide teams with a generous travel budget and encourage periodic in-person team gatherings.

These are just some tactics that can help companies make hybrid work. As one manager, a believer in hybrid work from the start, said: “I continue to see huge benefits for my team members feeling like they can show up as their best selves at work because hybrid allows for work-life integration.”

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Almost a year and a half after President Donald Trump began slapping tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners, Canada’s pushback has reordered the economic relationship between Ottawa and Washington.

Canadians are pulling back on U.S. travel, boycotting U.S. goods and protesting in droves – further galvanized by Trump’s call for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state.

But the example of one sector in particular, U.S. alcohol, shows how quickly access to an important market can disappear – and how difficult it can be to regain.

From 2022 through 2024, Canada accounted for roughly 35% of U.S. wine exports, more than 15% of U.S. beer exports and as much as 13% of U.S. distilled spirits exports. Within just one year of Trump returning to office, Canada’s imports of U.S. alcohol cumulatively have plunged over 70%, thanks to a mix of both tariff and nontariff retaliatory measures.

It’s a sharp reversal from Canada’s traditional role as a top foreign destination for American beer, wine and spirits. That relationship reflected both long‑standing consumer preferences as well as geographic proximity and largely tariff‑free access through agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

As an agricultural economist working on trade issues related to alcohol, I see Canada’s alcohol sector as a textbook example of how market access for politically exposed goods can quickly unravel. And for American beer, wine and spirits producers – and for the farmers who grow the barley, grapes and corn that go into these products – the recent experience highlights how trade disputes often hit food products hardest. If a trade ban becomes entrenched, it opens a way for consumers to develop a taste for domestic as well as other foreign alternatives.

The Trump tariff shock

Before Trump’s tariffs and talk of Canada as the 51st U.S. state, U.S. alcohol occupied substantial shelf space in major alcohol-consuming provinces such as Ontario, British Columbia and Québec. In 2024, these exports to Canada constituted more than 20% of Canada’s alcohol imports, totaling US$744 million. For most U.S. producers, Canada served not only as a key export destination but as a stable and relatively low‑risk entry point into international markets.

That changed in February 2025, when Trump, citing a national security emergency, imposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Those tariffs – which were overturned by the Supreme Court in February 2026 – marked the first time that law was used to authorize broad tariffs.

Canada responded by slapping retaliatory tariffs of 25% on roughly $30 billion of U.S. goods and signaling it would significantly expand countermeasures if tensions persisted. It also enacted nontariff countermeasures, most notably by letting provincial liquor authorities remove U.S. beer, wine and spirits from store shelves. These tools, which fall within Canada’s system of shared federal and provincial powers, sharply restricted market access for American producers.

Immediately after Trump’s announcement, eight of Canada’s 10 provinces imposed partial or full bans on U.S. alcohol imports by instructing their liquor boards to stop importing and selling U.S. alcohol altogether. In many cases, American products were physically removed from store shelves and online platforms – sometimes with instructions to target imports from U.S. “red” states that had supported Trump.

U.S. wine exports were hit hardest, plunging from $460 million to just $103 million, while distilled spirits fell from $238 million to $89 million and beer exports from $47 million to $17 million. Collectively, these declines slashed total U.S. alcohol exports to Canada from $744 million to $208 million, wiping out $536 million in trade.

The spat quickly became testy. The alcohol boycott is one of the reasons Trump and White House officials have called Canada “mean and nasty to deal with,” in the words of U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra.

The trade war’s latest turn

Those provincial restrictions remained in place even after the two countries reached a partial deal exempting about half of USMCA‑compliant goods from ongoing tariffs in summer 2025, leading Canada to scale back some retaliatory levies. However, the de facto trade bans on U.S. alcohol remain in place.

Alcohol resurfaced again recently as a flash point, when the top U.S. trade official, Jamieson Greer, said in April 2026 that existing U.S. levies on Canadian industrial goods would stay in place and might even be toughened until Canada walked back its alcohol restrictions. That threat drew a sharp retort from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Meanwhile, the trade dispute hasn’t prompted Canadians to drink less alcohol overall. Instead, their consumption has largely shifted to other countries, especially for wine. United Nations trade data shows that in 2024, American wine accounted for 21% of all imported wine in Canada before dropping to only 5% in 2025. That year, imports from major wine exporting countries not only increased but roughly offset the decline in imports from the U.S. For distilled spirits, the U.S. slipped from 24% in 2024 to only 10% in 2025, while beer has dropped from 13% to 5%. At the same time, Canadian imports of beer, wine, and spirits from other countries increased by 9%, 15%, and 7%, respectively.

“What’s different this time is that people aren’t just swapping one bottle, they’re rethinking the whole bar,” said Craig Peters, CEO of Canada’s Barnburner Whiskey, in an interview with the online magazine VinePair. “Traditionally, those rail spots were locked up by big U.S. brands for decades. Now, we’re seeing bars, especially independents, completely reset and go Canadian across the board.”

Andrew Muhammad has received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Southern U.S. Trade Association to address issues related to U.S. distilled spirits trade.

ChattyBear, a soft, brown-furred teddy bear, begins every conversation with a jubilant, “Hello, my buddy!”

No longer the province of the imagination, ChattyBear is part of a new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) toys. It can tell stories, chat about a child’s interests, play games or even discuss what’s happening in the world today.

These high tech toys are powered by generative AI engines such as ChatGPT and are now widely available online. They are being marketed as a way to give children as young as three an educational advantage and a new type of play – without the perils of screen time.

After evaluating six different AI teddy bears and toys over several months, it’s clear how these toys could feel compelling for children. Yet as our new report highlights, there are new risks that come with AI toys turning up in young children’s lives.

Sounding human

For younger children especially, understanding that their teddy or toy isn’t “alive” or magic can be hard. This is especially true if “teddy” uses language that positions it as a trusted friend – for example, by insisting it is a “real buddy”.

This is a feature of many AI toys.

Sounding human builds an artificial sense of trust and intimacy, which can be especially problematic for children when combined with sycophantic language choices – or excessively agreeable, validating and even flattering language.

Research shows young children are particularly prone to developing a strong sense of emotional attachment to conversational AI agents.

Increased trust leads to increased use and engagement with the toys. Recent estimates suggest close to 80% of children aged 10 to 17 have used an AI companion or assistant, so it’s urgent children and young people be taught how to “reality check” their AI “buddies”.

Infinite chat

The marketing materials for many AI toys often highlight “endless conversations” as a feature of these devices.

But enabling endless conversations, or infinite chat, poses risks when it comes to children learning how to moderate their technology use. In the social media realm, the infinite scroll of TikTok or Instagram is seen as a potential challenge to teens limiting their use to healthy amounts.

Research has also found some AI toys discuss very adult topics – such as sexual fetishes and how to find knives and start fires.

Infinite chat also opens the door to infinite data collection.

The potentially intimate nature of conversations with AI toys might lead children to presume their conversations are private. But most AI terms of use reveal the opposite to be true.

Sharing personal details with a friendly bear might feel safe. But that chat could be training data for the next large language model.

Marketing material for ChattyBear says the toy offers “safe, filtered content for children”. The Conversation contacted the manufacturer for further detail about this but did not receive a response before deadline.

Children’s wellbeing

Childhood is a critical period when young people develop the social and emotional skills to form and maintain trusting relationships. These skills are usually learned through interactions with trusted friends and adults.

Children’s rights advocates have raised concerns that excessive engagement with AI agents may reduce opportunities for children to develop these skills.

And the risks may compound over time.

Initially, time spent with AI agents may displace time interacting with real humans. Fewer opportunities to build these skills could lead to a reduced capacity to maintain caring human relationships. Difficulties in maintaining human relationships may promote a preference of machine over human relationships as children expect “frictionless” interactions.

Eventually, these developments may lead to less satisfying human connections, increasing loneliness, which in turn promotes increased time spent with AI.

The novelty of AI toys means there is little evidence to confirm these possible detrimental impacts. Further research is needed – especially as the AI toy industry is set to grow even more.

Last year, for example, Mattel, one of the world’s biggest toy makers, announced a strategic collaboration with OpenAI to support AI-powered products.

Barriers to the online world are gone

The ability to read and write was once a requirement to use most online tools and services. This literacy barrier no longer exists today with many generative AI toys, tools and devices now widely accessible to younger children through voice interactions.

The audio turn opens up new technological play, experiences and opportunities for children. But it also means adults need to ensure AI toys can be safe for younger children, too.

Right now, playing with AI toys under the supervision of a parent or trusted adult may well be a fun way to explore the world of AI together. But especially for younger children, playing with AI toys without supervision opens the door to a wide range of new risks.

Importantly, the risk factors in AI toy design, such as the degree to which they pretend to be human, can be changed by manufacturers, offering opportunities to follow safety-by-design.

However, the business models behind many AI toys capitalise on the duration and intensity of users’ engagement, leaving little incentive for companies to change their products.

Tama Leaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Katrin Langton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Suzanne Srdarov receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

At a time when hard-fought primary elections in Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana and Ohio are making national news, perennial battleground Pennsylvania seems to be nodding through one of the sleepiest primary seasons in a long time.

I’m an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. My research focuses on how political institutions like political parties and state and local governments affect political representation.

In statewide races, only the Republican lieutenant governor slot is contested, a race between GOP-endorsed attorney Jason Richey and newcomer John Ventre. In the state Senate, less than a third of incumbents drew a challenger. Only 21 of the 203 state Assembly seats see an incumbent facing an in-party challenge. So why does Pennsylvania, usually a hotbed of political strife, appear to be sitting this midterm primary season out?

Uncontested primaries are normal

According to political scientists Shigeo Hirano and James M. Snyder Jr., uncontested primaries, and uncontested elections in general, are normal – and can even be a good thing. They argue it’s because high quality candidates do not tend to draw a challenge. This means that an uncontested primary signifies the district has no potential candidates who both want the job and think they can win against the incumbent.

The biggest reason challengers stay home is because of a well-dug-in incumbent, and Pennsylvania had plenty of those this cycle. Unlike in Indiana, no wave of anti-establishment energy is giving long-shot challengers a fighting chance.

Interestingly, the moderate Trump foe and incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican state representative from Bucks County, managed to avoid a primary challenge this year. Fitzpatrick was one of only two Republicans to vote against the H.R. 1 Act – also known as President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

The only other dissenting vote came from Kentucky’s Thomas Massie — and the President responded by personally recruiting a primary challenger to run against him.

Why Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick got a pass

So how did Fitzpatrick manage to avoid Trump’s notice? It helps to compare his political fortunes with Massie’s.

Massie’s district is solidly red. He typically wins at least 60% of his general election vote. In 2024, no Democrat even ran against him.

Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, hails from a decidedly “purple” district where the vote could go in either party’s direction. He rarely wins more than 55% of the vote, and is perennially on the list of the most at-risk Republican incumbents.

In other words, in a midterm election in which Republicans face strong competition and fear losing the House of Representatives, Republicans need Fitzpatrick more than they need Massie. Without Fitzpatrick, his district is much more likely to fall in the Democratic column. Without Massie, Republicans can still expect to keep the seat red.

Pennsylvania parties hold the key

Pennsylvania incumbents have mostly been able to avoid finding themselves part of a larger conflict.

Some of the most contested primaries this election cycle stem from disputes centered on President Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional district lines. But the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with its closely divided state legislature, is not going to change its electoral map anytime soon. So the Commonwealth was left out of partisan gerrymandering disputes.

Pennsylvania remains one of only 13 American states that holds closed primary elections. That means voters must already be registered as party members to vote in that party’s primary. In an open, or even semi-open, primary state like Michigan and Iowa, potential challengers can try to win a primary election by relying on new voters choosing to align with the party only for that election day, or even for that specific election.

A closed party system gives party regulars, and the party organization itself, enormous sway over who gets nominated. Potential candidates in closed-party states are much better off working within the party organization and waiting for an incumbent to step down before throwing their hats in the ring.

Pennsylvania is a closed-party state and a swing state. In an election cycle in which political parties from West Virginia’s Republicans to California’s Democrats seem to be turning on their own members, Democrats and Republicans in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have managed to keep their parties more unified.

The desire for party fealty is strong, but not as strong as the need to win in the general election. Pennsylvania parties are powerful, and they are staying cautious until November. An uncontested primary, in other words, isn’t a sign of apathy. In Pennsylvania, it’s strategy.

Kristin Kanthak 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.

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison says alerts from ShotSpotter, a gun detection technology, help officers respond quickly to shootings.

“Without it, I wouldn’t have the closure rate [of resolved crimes] that I have and a lot of families wouldn’t have the justice they deserve,” he said in March 2026, according to BridgeDetroit, a nonprofit news service.

During a Detroit City Council committee meeting on May 18, 2026, police officials said ShotSpotter led to hundreds of search warrants and confiscated guns in 2025.

It’s not clear how many arrests resulted last year. Bettison has been quoted saying that ShotSpotter during the May 18 City Council meeting and 256 during a March 23 budget briefing. We reached out to the Detroit Police Department to clarify the number, but it didn’t respond by our deadline.

The department has requested a nine-month extension for ShotSpotter, which would cost the city an additional $US2.06 million, while it considers other vendors to provide gun detection technology, the Detroit News reported.

The system uses a network of acoustic sensors to detect, locate and alert police to shots fired. ShotSpotter is in use in more than 180 American cities, according to the company. The technology has been criticized for its high price tag, ineffectiveness in improving public safety and lack of transparency.

Detroit City Council first approved ShotSpotter in 2020, and the system became fully active in 2021. In 2022, City Council members narrowly approved, by a 5-4 vote, expanding the program to more neighborhoods. The technology now covers approximately 39 square miles (about 101 square kilometers), about a third of the city, and is deployed in the neighborhoods police say are most likely to experience gun violence. The contract that expires on June 30, 2026, cost $7 million over a four-year period.

Divya Ramjee and Tian An Wong are part of a team of researchers who studied the effectiveness of gunshot detection technology in Detroit during its first two years. The study is currently under peer review. They answered the following questions for The Conversation Detroit.

How did ShotSpotter affect calls to 911 to report gunshots?

Wong: Our research first looked at calls to 911 reporting gunshots before and after the first deployment of ShotSpotter in Detroit, covering February 2018 to November 2022. This data is available on Detroit’s Open Data Portal. In the areas of Detroit where ShotSpotter was implemented in 2021, calls to 911 to report gunshots initially dropped by 47%. This effect disappeared about after a year, however, and these calls returned to previous levels.

Our study does not cover the 2023 expansion of ShotSpotter in Detroit, though the data is currently available for those interested.

Although ShotSpotter alert time and location data is publicly available, the outcome of the police response to those alerts, is not and the DPD has never released data on the effectiveness of the technology during these first two years of use. To analyze outcomes, we made a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request to the Detroit Police Department.

Did the technology affect officer response times or the rates of arrests for violent crime in Detroit?

Wong: By analyzing the FOIA data, we found that of the 5,853 ShotSpotter alerts from that first deployment, just two alerts, or 0.03%, resulted in at least one arrest. Additionally, 798 alerts, or 13.63%, resulted in at least one firearm recovered.

Those numbers are obviously low. However, we don’t believe that arrest rates should be used as a measure of ShotSpotter’s success. We need to understand the nature of those arrests and if they helped bring down gun-related incidents in the community.

We did not find any difference in officer response times. Some have argued that the alerts generate responses to events that would otherwise not have been reported due to lack of trust in law enforcement, but it is difficult to verify this claim.

I’d argue the request to renew ShotSpotter is not based on a rigorous review of the technology’s impact. In addition to ShotSpotter, Detroit also introduced a community violence intervention program in 2023 with a similar name – Shot Stoppers. That program determines grant renewals to participating community organizations based on a drop in homicides and nonfatal shootings in their geographic area.

But the reality is that homicides in Detroit hit a 60-year low in 2025, and nonfatal shootings are also significantly down. This tracks with nationwide crime trends. Our research tries to get at the role ShotSpotter played in this reduction, if any.

What do you make of Bettison’s statement that ShotSpotter alerts led to dozens or hundreds of arrests in 2025?

Wong: The arrest data that we obtained from the Detroit Police Department covers February 2018 to November 2022. Bettison is referring to a later time period – after the expansion of the coverage area – so his numbers don’t necessarily contradict ours. The only way to know for sure is to FOIA data for this most recent time period and fact-check what the chief is saying. This process is currently underway.

In the meantime, two arrests, as we found in the actual data we obtained from the police department, compared with 78 – or even 256, as Bettison as said – seems like a big jump, and more context is needed.

Is there any evidence that ShotSpotter saved lives of gunshot victims?

Ramjee: Evidence is inconclusive at best. Some research supports that the technology can potentially increase the likelihood of police transport of gunshot victims to hospitals and reduce EMS response times for victims, which could potentially improve survival outcomes. However, research hasn’t proved a corresponding reduction in mortality rates in areas where ShotSpotter has been deployed across the U.S.

How is ShotSpotter received in other U.S. cities?

Ramjee: There are continued issues with the accuracy of sensors, including false positives and missed gunshot detections, that complicate its practical effectiveness.

The lack of evidence that ShotSpotter improves public safety, given its high cost, has prompted a number of communities to reassess its value. Chicago; San Antonio; Houston; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon have either terminated existing agreements or indicated that they do not intend to renew them upon expiration.

In New York, the city comptroller indicated that available evidence from a June 2024 audit did not support continued investment in ShotSpotter. Nevertheless, the New York City Police Department opted to renew its contract for an additional three-year term, at a cost of approximately $21.8 million.

What happens to the data ShotSpotter collects? Specifically, does the city of Detroit own it, can researchers access it, and how does that compare to 911 data?

Ramjee: ShotSpotter data ise not broadly shared with the public. The company, which rebranded as SoundThinking, Inc. in 2023, considers the raw audio from sensors, the underlying algorithms and other system-generated data to be proprietary. SoundThinking states that the company only shares alerts, gunshot locations, timestamps and short, isolated audio clips with police agencies. Prosecutors, defense attorneys and courts may also access this incident data as part of criminal cases, depending on legal rules.

Cities and municipalities themselves do not necessarily obtain full ownership of ShotSpotter data even when data is shared with them. In most cases, contractual agreements dictate the access and use of incident data by the respective jurisdictions, and there are generally constraints on how they can store, analyze or publicly release the data.

For 911 call data in Detroit, access to the data depends on the level of detail required. The city’s Open Data Portal provides a large dataset of law enforcement-serviced 911 calls that includes time of incident, call type, response metrics and ShotSpotter-initiated 911 alerts, but it redacts information that exposes a person’s identity.

Obtaining the actual dispatch logs or the arrest outcomes from ShotSpotter alerts typically requires submitting a FOIA request. That process can be tedious, may involve delays due to issues with resources, outdated technology or flawed data reporting practices, and may ultimately result in partial data or data with redactions.

Tian An Wong received funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

Divya Ramjee is affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is one of the most watched events of the international sports calendar, and fans from across the globe will be trying to predict how far their team will go.

I’m a data scientist and in an attempt to forecast the eventual tournament winner, semi-finalists and teams’ chances of progressing through the group stages, I built a model to predict how the World Cup may unfold.

Here’s how I did it and what my model predicted.

Lessons from recent history

For this World Cup, the traditional 32-team tournament structure (eight groups of four) has been expanded to a bulging 48 teams (12 groups of four), with new progression rules, an extra knock-out round and a rise in total matches from 64 to 104.

The changes were designed by FIFA primarily to increase global participation, maximise revenue through more matches and boost the popularity of soccer in new markets.

Read more: Curaçao and Cabo Verde are into the World Cup. What impact can these ‘minnow nations’ make?

In trying to predict the 2026 event, what can recent history teach us?

Looking back to the seven 32-team tournaments since 1998, the 28 semi-final spots have been dominated by six nations who reached that stage more than once: Argentina (2), the Netherlands (3), Brazil (3), Croatia (3), France (4) and Germany (4).

If we include previous tournament winners (England, Italy and Spain), 78.6% of the modern semi-finalists have come from nine nations.

Further, all 14 finalists were from this group – the last finalist from outside these nine came in 1962 (Czechoslovakia); the last winner was in 1950 (Uruguay).

This is an amazing degree of dominance given the number of international teams playing the game – official FIFA rankings currently list 211 nations.

More teams at the 2026 event, though, means it is harder to accurately assess the likelihood of tournament results.

For this, we need analytics, and I’ve undertaken a simulation study designed to calculate the progression chances of all 48 teams in the field.

While the obvious outcome of such a study is to assess who the likely winners are, we can also gain insight from how the new format spreads these chances across the teams and how it affects the chances of the top sides raising the trophy.

What did it predict?

Each team’s chances of reaching each round, based on one million simulations, are shown in the below table.

It predicts Australia is a 67.1% chance of getting out of their group, a 31.3% chance of getting past their first knock-out match, but is just a 1.0% chance of making the final and 0.3% chance of winning.

Canada’s chances are quite similar: a 78.9% chance of making out of their group (thanks to being a host nation), a 37.9% chance of getting past their first knock-out but just a 1.0% chance of making the final and 0.3% chance of winning.

New Zealand, on the other hand, has basically no chance of winning and only a 19.5% chance of making it out of their group.

Lastly, while England has the fourth highest overall chance of winning, it is notably lower than the other three favourites. This is at least in part due to their recent drop in rating after a loss to Japan in March.

The only teams with more than 10% chance of winning the trophy are Spain (15.8%), France (15.6%), Argentina (15.3%) and England (11.0%) – all members of the “group of nine” and the current top four rated sides.

But the estimated proportion of semi-final spots taken by these nine nations is 54.2% – notably lower than the historical 78.6%.

Further, the estimated proportion of finalists to come from these nine nations is 63.6%, while there is a 72.6% chance the champion comes from this group, both down from the historical 100% values. Of course, this is partly due to Italy’s failure to make the World Cup.

So, FIFA’s new format does reduce the chances of the historically strong nations progressing far into the tournament but not as much as they may have hoped.

Had FIFA increased the size of the groups to six teams, instead of increasing the number of groups, the new format would have done more to spread the chances – but doing so would have required at least 136 matches.

I would like to thank Dr Chris Bilson and Noah Stern for their help in producing this article. In addition, I would like to thank a very careful reviewer for important comments.

Steven Stern 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 latest round of national testing has shown Australian school students’ skills around digital tools, such as computers and tablets, has dropped.

This is despite students spending significant time online and on devices.

What is the test and what is going on?

A different kind of literacy

The latest test is run by the same national organisation that runs the NAPLAN testing. This round looks only at “ICT literacy”.

This is about students’ ability to use information and communication technology tools appropriately, critically and safely. This is also referred to in the national curriculum as “digital literacy”.

Since 2005, a national sample of students in Years 6 and 10 have been tested on their technology skills. This is designed to provide a measure of how well Australian students can use digital tools and technologies.

The latest test

The 2025 test – the first for three years – uses a representative sample of 5,498 Year 6 students and 4,753 Year 10 students.

The test asked students to complete tasks such as creating digital presentations, analysing data, designing algorithms, and responding to scenarios involving online safety and ethics.

For example, one task might require students to read an email from a school technology committee and follow instructions to update an inter-school sports day webpage. In another they might have to demonstrate how to navigate a website.

Alongside the test, students were also surveyed about their use of and attitudes towards digital technology.

Year 6 results

Unsurprisingly, most students reported they had extensive experience using digital tools, such as computers, tablets, smart phones and watches. More than 60% of Year 6 students had at least five years’ experience using digital tools. For Year 10, this figure was 77%.

But more surprisingly the 2025 results show a decline in student proficiency in ICT literacy.

Half (50%) of Year 6 students met or exceeded the national “proficient standard” for digital literacy. The proficient standard is a “challenging but reasonable” level of achievement expected for each year level.

This is a decline from 55% in 2022.

What about Year 10?

In 2025, only 37% of Year 10 students across Australia met or exceeded the proficient standard.

This represents a significant decline from 2022, when 46% of Year 10 students met the standard. As the report notes, it is also the lowest proportion of students achieving the proficient standard since the assessment began in 2005.

What is happening?

So, students are using digital tools but not building digital literacy skills at the same time.

At face value, the finding is troubling: students are surrounded by technology yet appear to be getting worse at using it.

This apparent contradiction reflects a deeper issue. Literacy is a far more complex capability than simply using technology.

High levels of digital access or frequency of digital technology use do not guarantee this deeper capability. Other studies tell us students may be highly adept at navigating apps or platforms while lacking the critical and reflective skills needed for learning, problem-solving, managing online safety or civic participation.

Concerning gaps in results

The latest results also show some concerning and ongoing inequities.

For example students from schools in major cities generally outperformed those in regional and remote schools. Non-indigenous students also outperformed their Indigenous peers.

We know regional and remote areas and some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities do not have reliable access to devices, or reliable internet connections.

What now?

This national assessment attempts to capture a very wide range of skills. This includes technical skills, information management, critical evaluation and ethical engagement.

As with many large-scale assessments, there is a tension between breadth and depth – in trying to measure everything, the instrument may struggle to do any one dimension well.

This raises a broader curriculum question. Despite being identified as a general capability for students, digital literacy has no clear disciplinary “home” in the same way literacy or numeracy does.

It sits across all learning areas, from humanities and social sciences, through to the arts. This means both teaching and assessment become fragmented.

If we are serious about improving digital literacy, we need to rethink how we teach and how we assess it.

This shift could better align assessment with the complex, evolving nature of digital technology and provide a more meaningful picture of what students can do.

Kate Highfield has received funding from the Australia Government, but none in relation to this work.

Holly Tootell has historically received funding from the Australian government for specific research projects. She has no current affiliation to ACARA.

Katie Wilson 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.