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In the news

Real news stories from the English-speaking world, connected to the topics. When a task asks for a current example, get it here — but read the whole story before you use it.

Last updated 4 July 2026

NBC News30. juni 2026

Supreme Court rejects Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship

In a 6–3 decision, the US Supreme Court struck down the president's executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, upholding the 14th Amendment's 160-year-old guarantee that almost anyone born on US soil is a citizen.

Slik bruker du den: A perfect double example: checks and balances in action (the courts blocking the executive), and the melting pot ideal written into law. Use it in tasks on both the US political system and immigration.
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RTÉ29. april 2026

Last hereditary peers exit House of Lords for final time

After more than 700 years, the right to sit in the UK Parliament by birth ended when the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 removed the last hereditary peers from the upper chamber.

Slik bruker du den: Use it to show that the UK constitution is still changing: an unelected chamber reforming itself. Strong in discussions about how democratic the British system really is.
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NBC News28. januar 2026

To avoid accusations of AI cheating, college students are turning to AI

Students are using «humanizer» tools to rewrite AI-generated essays so detection software cannot flag them – an arms race where AI writes, AI detects, and AI disguises, while teachers move exams back to pen and paper.

Slik bruker du den: Great for discussing what writing is for: if the point of an essay is to develop your own thinking, disguised AI text defeats the student, not the teacher. Also a plagiarism and accountability case.
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Fortune27. desember 2025

2026 will be the year you get fooled by a deepfake, researcher says

Voice cloning has crossed the «indistinguishable threshold», researchers warn: humans identified high-quality deepfakes with only about 24 % accuracy in a 2025 study, while the number of deepfakes online exploded from half a million in 2023 to about eight million in 2025.

Slik bruker du den: The strongest possible argument for lateral reading and fact-checking: if your eyes and ears can be fooled, source habits are the only defence. Use it in any task on source reliability.
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NPR1. desember 2025

Don't get angry, but the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year is 'rage bait'

Oxford chose «rage bait» – content designed to provoke anger for engagement – as its Word of the Year, after usage tripled in twelve months. It beat «aura farming» and «biohack» in a public vote.

Slik bruker du den: Evidence that English evolves in real time and that the internet now drives it. Works in tasks on global English, informal register, and how engagement economics shape online media.
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The Conversation4. november 2025

What AI earbuds can't replace: the value of learning another language

Real-time translation earbuds now handle everyday conversations across languages – but researchers argue machine translation cannot replace what language learning gives you: nuance, trust, and access to how other people actually think.

Slik bruker du den: Use it to discuss the future of English as a world language and your own motivation for learning: if machines translate everything, what is a language lesson for? Strong opening for reflection tasks.
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NPR1. oktober 2025

PEN America warns of rise in books 'systematically removed from school libraries'

PEN America documented 6,870 book bans in US school libraries in the 2024–25 school year – nearly 23,000 since 2021 – mostly targeting books about race, LGBTQ+ lives and sexual violence, with Florida, Texas and Tennessee banning most.

Slik bruker du den: Shows that literature is political: what students are allowed to read is being fought over right now. Use it to argue why analysing fiction matters, or in discussions of freedom of expression in the US.
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The Hollywood Reporter16. september 2025

TV adaptations of video games are creating millions of new players

Research shows screen adaptations like The Last of Us and Fallout drive game player numbers up by an average of nearly 140 % – the Fallout series lifted monthly players almost 500 % – proving stories now move freely between media.

Slik bruker du den: Concrete evidence that games and film are one connected story culture. Use it in tasks about adaptation, or to argue that games deserve analysis as cultural expressions.
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UDaily (University of Delaware)4. mars 2025

In our literature era: Taylor Swift's lyrics taught as literature

A university English course analyses Taylor Swift's lyrics alongside centuries of British poetry – tracing her breakup songs back to the Roman poet Ovid – and treats song lyrics with the same analytical tools as canonical poems.

Slik bruker du den: Your licence to analyse song lyrics seriously: metaphor, imagery and tone work the same in a hit song as in a poem. Use it to justify choosing lyrics in a self-chosen text task.
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CNN14. november 2024

New Zealand MPs disrupt parliament with haka to protest Indigenous treaty bill

Māori MPs stopped a parliamentary vote with a haka in protest against a bill reinterpreting the Treaty of Waitangi, while tens of thousands joined a nine-day hīkoi (march) to Wellington in one of New Zealand's largest protests.

Slik bruker du den: The Treaty of Waitangi as live politics, not history – and indigenous culture used as political voice. Use it to show present-day agency in any task on indigenous peoples.
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