The announcement of 76-year-old Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson as this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature laureate marked the end of a lengthy, secretive selection process that began more than a year ago. Throughout its history, the world’s most prestigious literary award has “generated more controversies” than any of the other Nobel Prizes, said Euronews.

Who picks the Nobel laureates in literature?
Awards are chosen by the Swedish Academy, made up of “distinguished Swedish writers, linguists, literary scholars, historians, and a prominent jurist”, according to the Nobel Prize website. The 18 members have tenure for life.

How is the winner chosen?
The Academy’s “Nobel Committee” sends invitation forms to individuals and organisations eligible to submit nominations, such as literature and linguistics professors, previous laureates, and heads of writers’ associations. The list “can reach 200 names per year”, Gisele Sapiro, research director and Nobel Prize expert, told Deutsche Welle.

The Committee screens the submissions and “whittles down the nominations” to five candidates. The prize is given to a writer’s body of work, rather than one book. Members read and assess each candidate’s oeuvre over the summer, and vote in early October. In addition to the prestige conferred by the award, the winner takes home 12 million Swedish kronor (about £910,000).

Why is it so controversial?
Some winners have been divisive figures, such as 2019 laureate Peter Handke – a “known denier of the Bosnian genocide” and “close supporter” of former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, said Euronews.

There is also a “comic discrepancy between the weight of the prize and the parochialism of the judges”, who have awarded eight Nobels to writers from Sweden, while only 33 out of 122 laureates have come from outside Europe, said the Financial Times’ Simon Kuper. Only about 15% of winners have been women (although the prize has alternated between male and female laureates each year since 2018).

Despite the criticisms, the Nobel Prize still “shapes the global canon”. It can “turbocharge sales” and get authors’ names trending far beyond their countries. In a world where reading is “in decline”, this prize matters more than ever.

The framed school photo on the mantelpiece is a “familiar fixture of family life”, said The Times, but the annual push to encourage children to smile nicely for their snap may be ending. The school photography industry is “under threat”, and the main culprits are parents using artificial intelligence tools to scrub the watermarks from photographers’ proofs, or even generate their photos.

According to data from the Association of Photographers, nearly 60% of school photographers have lost commissioned work to AI, and more than two-thirds have experienced copyright infringement.

Steep prices 
The average spend on a single school photo is £25, but throw in add-ons like “a magnet, keyring or snow globe” and prices “can run up” to £100 or more, said The Guardian.

Parents are increasingly baulking at shelling out for “mundane headshots” when it’s easy to use AI tools to erase the photographer’s watermark and get the pictures for free, said Futurism. Some are even opting to “fast-track school picture day” by taking their own photos and then prompting ChatGPT to “make it look like a school picture” by adding the ubiquitous “milquetoast background”. 

Privacy concerns
Some parents turning to AI find that their child’s face is “changed during generation”, with alterations to “eyes, facial proportions and hairline”, said Gadget Review. Uploading a child’s image to an AI chatbot may “pose a bigger concern”, too, said USA Today. That image won’t be discarded afterwards. Even if the chat is deleted, the photo will be kept for potential use in training AI to “generate more refined content”. It’s “basically seeding your child’s image into a large language model”, legal expert Daliah Saper told the paper, “and who knows how that can be manipulated” in the future.

Scrubbing watermarks could also “end up being far more costly” in financial terms than just paying for the official photo, said US business magazine Fast Company. Doing so is copyright infringement, and photography companies could choose to take legal action.

Mourners light candles at an overnight vigil outside the Madrid flat of Maricarmen Abascal following the 87-year-old’s death, two weeks after her forcible eviction triggered mass protests over Spain’s housing crisis.

Thomas Coex / AFP / Getty Images

From picking pumpkins in Yorkshire and cuddling tarantulas in Oxfordshire to greeting ghostly figures in the Tower of London, here are some of the family-friendly activities on offer this Halloween.

Ghosts and ravens at Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London
Expect “roaming ghostly apparitions” at the Palace, and autumn trails “filled with pumpkins, scarecrows and seasonal surprises” around the grounds, said Connor Sturges in Condé Nast Traveller. Head to the Tower, too, which is offering a “unique encounter with the ravens” as the wardens reveal the fortress’ “darkest secrets”.

Pumpkin Picking at Stockeld Park, North Yorkshire
You can jump on a tractor and head out into the fields of this country estate to select your own pumpkin. Then settle in for a day of autumnal fun that includes a “pumpkin slingshot”, wand-making sessions and a friendly roving scarecrow, said Alice Saville in Time Out.

Victoria Park Guardians, Victoria Park, Manchester
As October draws to a close, Stretford’s Victoria Park “transforms into an interactive family trail”, said Emmeline Banks in Secret Manchester. Solve clues hidden across the park’s paths, gardens and historic spots to “uncover the mystery of the Keeper’s missing key”.

Thrill-seeking at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire
The Palace’s “haunted half term” offering includes the chance to handle tarantulas, snakes, giant snails and more in the ZooLab, plus witch storytelling sessions and circus workshops, said Fran Watts in The Independent. “Older thrill-seekers may want to wait until after dark” for the spooky trail and its “jumpy twists and turns”.

Stockpile food – and wash your hands: is that really how to prepare for environmental catastrophe?
George Monbiot in The Guardian
“National resilience” is at its lowest level in decades, yet responsibility for action is dumped on ordinary people’s doorsteps, writes George Monbiot. We’re told to “stockpile food” as harvests fail and to “conserve water” as water-guzzling data centres are “forced through the planning system”. And don’t forget to wash your hands “after feeding wild birds”, while a “poultry sector growth plan” multiplies “super-incubators of avian flu”. We may be “willing to play our part” but “we cannot do the work of government”.

Meghan Markle just made the best possible move – it could change everything
Jasmine Carey in the Daily Express
I’m told the Duchess of Sussex is “set to eat humble pie” and “apologise” to the Prince and Princess of Wales for “things she said” in that Oprah Winfrey interview, writes royal reporter Jasmine Carey. “Better late than never.” Meghan can “see the value in an apology” now that she and Harry are living in Britain and a reconciliation might “allow the royal children to enjoy being cousins”. I’m not sure saying sorry “will guarantee forgiveness”, but I hope it does.

Has anyone out there got a new idea? Anyone..?
Hugo Rifkind in The Times
AI cannot “come up with anything new”, writes Hugo Rifkind. And while the tech just reconfigures the old, human output looks equally “bleak”. Every big film is either a sequel or “a repackaging”, and politics is all “reruns and heritage acts”. “Why risk a new idea, when the old ones still get people cheering? Why start a new fight, when the cosy old ones still do the job?” Trouble is, “we may soon forget how to have new ideas at all”.