Jennifer starred as the lovably loony Tanya McQuoid-Hunt in the first two seasons of The White Lotus. She recently scored her first Golden Globe and her first Emmy for her role in the series, which has led to a massive career resurgence for the actor.
At the end of season two, many viewers were shocked and upset after Jennifer’s character narrowly escaped death, only to die a silly accidental death later.
After Tanya was killed off, fans quickly flooded Twitter with some pretty noteworthy plot ideas for how to resurrect her in the show’s upcoming season.
theres no white lotus without jennifer coolidge like they have to bring her back as tanya’s twin or something next season
they could literally just bring tanya back for season 3 of white lotus and nobody would bat an eye. like mike wouldn’t even need to justify it plot-wise, nobody would question it. or give us her identical twin who got the other half a billion
While Coolidge was speaking with ET’s Denny Directo alongside her co-star, Jon Gries (who plays Greg Hunt), Gries tossed out the idea that “Jennifer play Jennifer’s sister.”
However, Jennifer rapidly turned down the idea. “I don’t think Mike’s going to allow that,” she said, referring to the show’s creator, Mike White.
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When ET told Jennifer about Twitter’s viral campaign to get Pamela Anderson on the show, she seemed to enjoy the idea of the Baywatch icon joining the cast as Tanya’s sister.
“I just recently saw Pam’s documentary and I called 100 people to watch it. And I swear to God, we all had the same reaction. It’s amazing,” Jennifer said, gushing about Anderson’s recent Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story. “You finally get the real story, and she’s got this huge comeback.”
Though plot details are still under wraps for the forthcoming season of The White Lotus, Pamela reacted to mounting fan requests to see her cast on the series during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show earlier this month.
Sharing that she’s “up for anything,” the star cautiously added, “I think that would be an incredible challenge, but like I said, I’m not an ambitious person. I just like to go with the flow.”
Pamela continued, “So, I don’t really know what’s next, but I know I haven’t really had the opportunity to see what I’m capable of on film yet.”
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In the Unpacking S2 E7 clip at the end of the White Lotuss season two finale, White hinted that season three could take place in Asia and focus on “death and Eastern religion and spirituality.”
“The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” Mike White said. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”
The family of actor Jansen Panettiere is speaking out one week after his sudden death.
In a statement issued to Good Morning America and other outlets on Monday, Jansen’s loved ones – including sister and fellow actor Hayden Panettiere – confirmed that the 28-year-old had died of “cardiomegaly (enlarged heart), coupled with aortic valve complications,” citing a medical examiner’s report.
“Jansen’s heart could be seen in his eyes, and his charm in his brilliant, engaging smile; his soul in his masterful and revealing paintings, and the joy of life in his dry wit,” the statement, which was attributed to Hayden as well as Jansen’s father Skip and mother Lesley Vogel, read. “His charisma, warmth, compassion for others, and his creative spirit will live forever in our hearts and in the hearts of all whom he encountered.”
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After thanking fans for their “outpouring of love and support,” the family requested their privacy as they mourned, before adding: “We love you so much Jansen and you will be in our hearts forever.”
Jansen and Hayden Panettiere in 2013.
Jeffrey Mayer via Getty Images
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, cardiomegaly can be caused by heart damage and other types of heart disease. Over time, an enlarged heart may not pump blood effectively, leading to congestive heart failure.
Jansen, who was based in New York at the time of his death, made his screen acting debut in a 2002 episode of Even Stevens, and two years later, appeared with his sister in the Disney Channel movie Tiger Cruise. Other credits include the 2010 feature film The Perfect Game and a 2019 episode of The Walking Dead, as well as an array of voiceover work.
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He was also a visual artist, and showcased a selection of abstract paintings on his Instagram.
“I paint my problems. It gives me a sense of ultimate purpose,” Jansen wrote in a 2019 Medium blog. “In a world hypnotised by vanity fuelled with comparison, art is my escape.”
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Getting hit with one hurricane is bad enough, but new research from Princeton University’s engineering school shows that back-to-back versions may become common for many areas in coming decades.
Driven by a combination of rising sea levels and climate change, destructive hurricanes and tropical storms could become far more likely to hit coastal areas in quick succession, researchers found. In an article, published Feb. 27 in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers said that in some areas, like the Gulf Coast, such double hits could occur as frequently as once every 3 years.
“Rising sea levels and climate change make sequential damaging hurricanes more likely as the century progresses,” said Dazhi Xi, a postdoctoral researcher and a former graduate student in civil and environmental engineering and the paper’s lead author. “Today’s extremely rare events will become far more frequent.”
Researchers led by Ning Lin, an associate professor civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University, first raised questions about increasing frequency of sequential hurricanes after a particularly destructive hurricane season in 2017. That summer, Hurricane Harvey struck Houston followed by Irma in South Florida and Maria in Puerto Rico. The emergency planning challenges raised by 3 major hurricanes led researchers to question whether multiple destructive storms could occur more readily due to climate change, and what steps could be taken to prepare for this. In the late summer of 2021, Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana, followed shortly by Tropical Storm Nicholas, which had made landfall as a hurricane in Texas.
The researchers said their study showed that sequential storms have become more common on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, although they remain relatively rare.
“Sequential hurricane hazards are happening already, so we felt they should be studied,” Lin said. “There has been an increasing trend in recent decades.”
The researchers ran computer simulations to determine the change in likelihood of multiple destructive storms hitting the same area within a short period of time such as 15 days over this century. They looked at two scenarios: a future with moderate carbon emissions and one with higher emissions. In both cases, the chance of sequential, damaging storms increased dramatically.
There is a general scientific consensus that climate change will increase the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes in the coming century. But there is some uncertainty in whether the number of storms will increase, decrease, or stay the same over the period, the researchers noted. The model used by Lin’s team showed an increasing number of storms, but other models have shown no increase. However, Lin’s team found that even without an increase in the overall frequency of storms, the increase in intensity will make it much more likely that areas along with East Coast and Gulf Coast will experience sequential storms.
“The proportion of storms that can have an impact on communities is increasing,” Lin said. “The frequency of storms is not as important as the increasing number of storms that can become hazardous.”
The increasing hazard is mainly driven by two developments: rising sea levels and increasing precipitation driven by climate change. Sea level rise is occurring worldwide with the changing climate, and it is compounded on the Atlantic coast by geography. As sea levels rise, storm surge becomes more of a threat to coastal communities because the baseline water level is higher. A 3-meter storm surge on top of a historically normal water level is less damaging to roads than the same surge on top of a water level that is elevated by .5 meters. At the same time, storms are intensifying and higher average air temperatures mean that storms carry more water. This means rainfall and flooding from storms are likely to increase.
The combination of both factors means that storms that might have passed with little notice in the past will become threats, particularly when they hit one after another. In 2021, for example, Tropical Storm Nicholas was relatively weak when it hit Louisiana, but the storm caused more problems than expected because the state was still recovering from the destruction related to Hurricane Ida.
“Nicholas was quite a weak storm and one reason it produced a significant hazard was that the soil was already saturated,” Lin said. “So there was a lot of flooding.”
The researchers said it is important for community planners and regional emergency officials to recognize this emerging threat. Improvements in both resilience and response are required to meet the increasing hazard. For resilience, communities will need to deal with increased flooding threats and harden systems that remove floodwater and protect critical infrastructure such as transportation, water systems and power grids. Emergency response teams will have to be prepared to handle multiple storms in relatively quick succession. On the state and federal level, this could mean being ready to dispatch resources to many stricken communities at the same time.
“If a power system requires 15 days to recover from a major hurricane, we cannot wait that long in the future because the next storm can hit before you can restore power, as in the case of Nicholas following Ida” Lin said. “We need to think about plans, rescue workers, resources. How will we plan for this?”
A new brain connection discovered by University of California, Irvine researchers can explain how early-life stress and adversity trigger disrupted operation of the brain’s reward circuit, offering a new therapeutic target for treating mental illness. Impaired function of this circuit is thought to underlie several major disorders, such as depression, substance abuse and excessive risk-taking.
In an article recently published online in Nature Communications, Dr. Tallie Z. Baram, senior author and UCI Donald Bren Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Pediatrics, Neurology and Physiology & Biophysics, and Matt Birnie, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher, describe the cellular changes in the brain’s circuitry caused by exposure to adversity during childhood.
“We know that early-life stress impacts the brain, but until now, we didn’t know how,” Baram said. “Our team focused on identifying potentially stress-sensitive brain pathways. We discovered a new pathway within the reward circuit that expresses a molecule called corticotropin-releasing hormone that controls our responses to stress. We found that adverse experiences cause this brain pathway to be overactive.”
“These changes to the pathway disrupt reward behaviors, reducing pleasure and motivation for fun, food and sex cues in mice,” she said. “In humans, such behavioral changes, called ‘anhedonia,’ are associated with emotional disorders. Importantly, we discovered that when we silence this pathway using modern technology, we restore the brain’s normal reward behaviors.”
Researchers mapped all the CRH-expressing connections to the nucleus accumbens, a pleasure and motivation hub in the brain, and found a previously unknown projection arising from the basolateral amygdala. In addition to CRH, projection fibers co-expressed gama-aminobutyric acid. They found that this new pathway, when stimulated, suppresses several types of reward behaviors in male mice.
The study involved two groups of male and female mice. One was exposed to adversity early in life by living for a week in cages with limited bedding and nesting material, and the other was reared in typical cages. As adults, the early adversity-experiencing male mice had little interest in sweet foods or sex cues compared to typically reared mice. In contrast, adversity-experiencing females craved rich, sweet food. Inhibiting the pathway restored normal reward behaviors in males, yet it had no effect in females.
“We believe that our findings provide breakthrough insights into the impact of early-life adversity on brain development and specifically on control of reward behaviors that underlie many emotional disorders. Our discovery of the previously unknown circuit function of the basolateral amygdala-nucleus accumbens brain pathway deepens our understanding of this complex mechanism and identifies a significant new therapeutic target.” Baram said. “Future studies are needed to increase our understanding of the different and sex-specific effects of early-life adversity on behavior.”
Team members include Annabel K. Short, postdoctoral researcher, Lara Taniguchi, graduate student, Aidan Pham, lab assistant, and co-corresponding author Yuncai Chen, project scientist, from Department of Pediatrics; Gregory B. de Carvalho, graduate student, Benjamin G. Gunn, assistant project scientist; Christy A. Itoga, researcher; Xiangmin Xu, professor; Lulu Y. Chen, assistant professor; from the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology; and Stephen V. Mahler, associate professor from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior.
This work was supported by National Institute of Health grants P50 MH096889, MH73136, U01DA053826 NS108296 P50 DA044118, P50 MH096889 Seed Award FG23670, The Bren Foundation, a George E. Hewitt Foundation for Biomedical Research Fellowship and a British Society for Neuroendocrinology Project Support Grant BSN-5646342.
While analyzing data from the first images of a well-known early galaxy taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Cornell University astronomers discovered a companion galaxy previously hidden behind the light of the foreground galaxy — one that surprisingly seems to have already hosted multiple generations of stars despite its young age, estimated at 1.4 billion years old.
“We found this galaxy to be super-chemically abundant, something none of us expected,” said Bo Peng, a doctoral student in astronomy, who led the data analysis. “JWST changes the way we view this system and opens up new venues to study how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.”
Peng is the lead author of “Discovery of a Dusty, Chemically Mature Companion to z~4 Starburst Galaxy in JWST Early Release Science Data,” published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Earlier images captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile contained hints of the companion resolved clearly by JSWT, but couldn’t be interpreted as anything more than random noise, said Amit Vishwas, a research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences (CCAPS) and the paper’s second author.
The team estimated the companion galaxy, which they labeled SPT0418-SE, was within 5 kiloparsecs of SPT0418-47, one of the brightest dusty, star-forming galaxies in the early universe, its distant light bent and magnified by a foreground galaxy’s gravity into a circle, called an Einstein ring. The Magellanic Clouds, satellites of the Milky Way are about 50 kiloparsecs away. The proximity suggests these galaxies are bound to interact with each other and potentially even merge, an observation that adds to the understanding of how early galaxies may have evolved into larger ones.
The two galaxies are modest in mass as galaxies in the early universe go, with “SE” relatively smaller and less dusty, making it appear bluer than the extremely dust-obscured ring. Based on images of nearby galaxies with similar colors, the researchers suggest that they may reside “in a massive dark-matter halo with yet-to-be-discovered neighbors.”
Most surprising about the companion galaxy, considering its age and mass, was its mature metallicity — amounts of elements heavier than helium and hydrogen, such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. The team estimated that as comparable to our sun, which is more than 4 billion years old and inherited most of its metals from previous generations of stars that had 8 billion years to build them up.
“We are seeing the leftovers of at least a couple of generations of stars having lived and died within the first billion years of the universe’s existence, which is not what we typically see,” Vishwas said. “We speculate that the process of forming stars in these galaxies must have been very efficient and started very early in the universe, particularly to explain the measured abundance of nitrogen relative to oxygen, as this ratio is a reliable measure of how many generations of stars have lived and died.”
I’ve been making steady progress on the new Engage course design. It’s a lot of work – I’ve been putting in some long hours lately – but very fulfilling. I’m enjoying working co-creatively with ChatGPT on it. This has really taken the course design and development process to a whole new level.
I wouldn’t say that it’s saving me time per se. I could potentially leverage AI to speed up my design process, but that doesn’t resonate with me. Rather, it’s enabling me to go much deeper into understanding the core ideas, transformations, audience, and more. I can explore the ideas from many more angles and reflect upon them in ways I couldn’t really do before, at least not as thoroughly as I can now.
I love that ChatGPT has a decent working memory. I’m learning how to preload it with different subsets of information that I want it to work on, so I can have it generate more permutations of those ideas and do some insightful reasoning about them.
For instance, I had ChatGPT generate representative quotes regarding the problems and challenges people might express that Engage is being designed to address:
Key Quotes (AI Simulated)
“I feel like I’m just going through the motions every day, without really living.”
“I’m always busy, but I never seem to get anything done.”
“I can’t seem to focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time.”
“I’m constantly distracted by social media and other digital devices.”
“I’m always exhausted, even when I get enough sleep.”
“I have trouble setting priorities and sticking to them.”
“I feel like I’m not making any progress in my life or career.”
“I have trouble motivating myself to do the things I know I need to do.”
“I’m afraid of taking risks and trying new things.”
“I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and can’t break out of it.”
“I have trouble saying no and setting boundaries with others.”
“I feel like I’m not living up to my full potential.”
“I struggle with self-doubt and negative self-talk.”
“I have trouble finding a sense of purpose or direction in my life.”
“I’m overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks and responsibilities I have to juggle.”
“I’m constantly stressed out and anxious.”
“I have trouble managing my time and getting things done efficiently.”
“I don’t feel like I have enough time or energy to pursue my passions and hobbies.”
“I have trouble balancing my work and personal life.”
“I feel like I’m not making enough progress towards my goals.”
“I struggle with procrastination and putting things off until the last minute.”
“I’m easily overwhelmed by large projects or tasks.”
“I have trouble focusing on the present moment and enjoying life as it happens.”
“I’m constantly comparing myself to others and feeling inadequate.”
“I feel like I’m just going through the motions of life, without really experiencing it.”
“I have trouble finding meaningful relationships and connections with others.”
“I feel like I’m not living an authentic life, but rather one that’s been dictated by others or by society.”
“I struggle with perfectionism and have trouble accepting my flaws and mistakes.”
“I have trouble making decisions and second-guessing myself.”
“I feel like I’m not living up to the expectations of others, such as my family or society as a whole.”
It’s easy to have ChatGPT generate many variations of this type of list. This helps me catch additional ideas that may not be captured in a single list.
I feel especially well-suited to working with ChatGPT productively on this kind of project because of my background as a writer and as a programmer. It’s such a unique and robust tool, and I find myself shifting around a lot in how I interface with it – sometimes leaning more on normal human language while other times approaching it more like a coder and thinking algorithmically. I often think of ChatGPT as the ultimate programming language. It’s incredibly flexible in what it can do, and I love discovering new ways to squeeze more performance out of it. I use it pretty much every day now.
I especially like that I can use ChatGPT to give me different viewports into a range of self-development ideas that I’m working with. For instance, I can have it generate lists of side effects of people’s problems and struggles, so I better understand what they may be going through.
Here’s an example where I asked ChatGPT to predict 10 side effects that people may experience as a result of experiencing the struggles and challenges that Engage is being designed to address:
10 Side Effects
Poor health and well-being: Chronic stress and burnout can lead to physical and mental health problems, including fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and even chronic diseases.
Strained relationships: A lack of focus and productivity can lead to unmet commitments, unfulfilled promises, and strained relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.
Missed opportunities: Without a clear sense of purpose and direction, individuals may miss out on opportunities that could lead to personal and professional growth and fulfillment.
Financial instability: Poor productivity and lack of focus can lead to missed deadlines, poor performance, and reduced income or job loss, leading to financial instability and stress.
Reduced creativity and innovation: Without mental and emotional alignment, individuals may struggle to tap into their full creative potential, leading to stagnation and reduced innovation.
Reduced sense of self-worth: Failure to meet personal and professional goals can lead to reduced self-esteem and self-worth, creating a cycle of negative self-talk and self-doubt.
Reduced impact and influence: Without the ability to focus and deliver on important tasks and projects, individuals may struggle to make a meaningful impact in their personal and professional lives.
Reduced sense of meaning and purpose: Without a clear sense of purpose and direction, individuals may struggle to find meaning and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.
Reduced quality of life: The combined impact of these challenges can lead to a reduced quality of life, characterized by stress, burnout, and a lack of fulfillment.
Reduced sense of community and connection: Poor productivity and a lack of engagement can lead to social isolation and reduced sense of community and connection, exacerbating feelings of stress and loneliness.
Here’s another version, focused on the inner experience of these struggles.
Top 10 Inner Issues Experienced
Feeling overwhelmed and stressed, with a constant sense of pressure to perform or succeed
Experiencing a lack of clarity and purpose, and feeling uncertain about the direction of their life
Feeling disconnected from themselves and their own desires, as well as from other people and the world around them
Struggling with self-doubt, insecurity, and a negative inner voice that criticizes and undermines their efforts
Finding it difficult to focus and be productive, and feeling easily distracted or unmotivated
Feeling stuck in unfulfilling or unsatisfying situations, such as a job or relationship that isn’t fulfilling their needs
Feeling like they’re not living up to their full potential, and a sense of disappointment or regret about missed opportunities
Struggling with anxiety or other mental health issues, which can make it difficult to engage fully with life and pursue their goals
Feeling like they’re always in a state of transition or change, and not being able to find a sense of stability or security
Feeling like they’re alone or unsupported in their efforts to create a more engaged and fulfilling life, and lacking a sense of community or connection with others who share their values and goals.
I don’t know about you, but when I read these kinds of lists, it stirs up a lot of empathy because I know these are real challenges that many people experience every day.
How about a succinct list of the core struggles?
25 Core Struggles
Doubt
Anxiety
Uncertainty
Overwhelm
Procrastination
Self-doubt
Self-criticism
Perfectionism
Lack of focus
Fear of failure
Fear of success
Negative self-talk
Self-sabotage
Imposter syndrome
Burnout
Distraction
Lack of motivation
Poor time management
Inertia
Lack of direction
Lack of purpose
Lack of clarity
Low self-esteem
Low self-worth
Guilt
When I begin working on a new course, I like to start with the problems and challenges that the course is going to address. I normally spend weeks going over the problems till I feel like I really understand what it’s like to experience them from the inside. This helps me start spotting the leverage points regarding how to help people shift from problem space to solution space.
AI and Empathy
Developing a new course is a huge amount of work, and when I invest in such a big creative project, it’s really important for me to connect with a deep and meaningful purpose for it. In the past I would spend a lot of time dialoguing with people in my audience about their problems and challenges. That made me feel more connected to them and motivated to help. It gave me a more specific why. But this approach has many gaps and also redundancies. Many people will share the same kinds of problems, and some key problems won’t be articulated very well.
My blog was in ChatGPT’s training set, so it “knows” me and my writing to some extent. I can have it reason about my audience and their needs, values, desires, and more. Since I have many years of experience interacting with my online audience, I can also evaluate how accurate ChatGPT is in modeling what I expect my audience cares about. I would say it’s doing very well with that, especially as I preload it with more details to help guide it.
Moreover, I don’t have to lean on AI exclusively. It’s not a substitute for my previous processes, but it is a powerful supplement. That’s one reason I’m going a bit slower with this course design. I’ve added this powerful new tool, but it hasn’t replaced my tried and true approaches.
I know that some people think that AI is cold and heartless, and the media has been surging with stories about the ghastly edges of AI output. I know that some people would never use AI for this kind of very human work. Those people are entitled to their opinions, and my opinion is that they’re missing what this is all about.
What’s so fascinating about a tool like ChatGPT is that it was trained on human language, and the surprise was just how much human intelligence is encapsulated within our language patterns. That really got me thinking about the connection between language and thought. How much of my own thinking is empowered or constrained by my own language patterns? What’s the relationship between intelligence and language?
When I use ChatGPT, I straddle multiple frames. My background in programming, computer science, and mathematics keeps me aware of the language-based nature of the tool while also empowering me to use it like a programmer, not just as a writer or course creator. At the same time, my curious explorer side loves to interact with AI like it’s more than just the sum of its parts. I have tremendous respect for it as a different form of intelligence.
On the inside my experience of working with ChatGPT feels much like I’m co-creating the course with Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s like having a tireless assistant who also happens to be brilliant, but not exactly in the same way a human being would be brilliant. I absolutely love it. For a part of me, being able to collaborate like this with machine intelligence is a dream come true. I feel like I’m in creative paradise.
Once ChatGPT grasps the problems and struggles we’re looking to address, it’s also very good at helping to explore the transformations too. I’ve spent many hours going over those from many different angles till I found the hooks that really got me excited. I would say the biggest one is helping people overcome blocks they don’t even know they had.
For instance, if you’re not already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT for your self-development, then I’d say it’s a certainty that you’re being held back by blocks. The question is whether or not you’ve identified them yet. The truth is that if you’re waiting months to engage with such a breakthrough tool like this, you’re being way too much of a dinosaur.
For all of our previous courses, I focused on creating timeless content that would still be relevant decades after the course was created. For Engage I think we need an element that also involves the opposite, which is to cover the leading edge of what you can do with self-development with today’s accessible AI tools.
AI Assessment
ChatGPT is especially useful for making predictions, based on its current understanding. I often have it regenerate its responses multiple times to see how consistent its predictions are, which is a good way to double-check their stability.
After we worked a lot on the transformations that Engage is meant to help people with and the core concepts we’ll be covering, I asked it:
Do you predict that this is an achievable goal?
It replied:
Yes, I believe that this is an achievable goal. The Engage course appears to have a well-defined and thoughtful approach to personal growth and development, with a focus on providing participants with the tools, resources, and support they need to make positive changes in their lives. The course addresses a range of important topics and provides participants with strategies for developing positive habits, enhancing self-awareness, managing their time and productivity, and achieving personal transformation. With a skilled and dedicated instructor or coach, and a supportive community of like-minded individuals, participants have the potential to make significant progress towards their personal and professional goals. Of course, the level of success will ultimately depend on the individual’s own commitment and effort, but the Engage course appears to provide a strong foundation for achieving positive change.
It’s good to know that the AI is optimistic about our current direction. 😊
At the end of one lengthy work session, I also asked it:
So far so good… I’d say we’re on track to open up the new Engage course sometime in March. I’ll keep you posted, but just know that I’m continuing to work on this every week till it’s ready. And Mr. Data is helping me this time. 😉
After months of impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol, Rishi Sunak is finally preparing to present a new deal to parliament that could be the defining moment of his premiership.
While it is not yet known what is in the deal, there are a number of key issues that Sunak has sought to address — including ticking his “three boxes” of sovereignty for Northern Ireland, safeguarding its place in the Union and easing disruption for people and businesses.
However, while Sunak and the EU may now be on the same page, it is not guaranteed that everyone in the Tory Party, and the Democratic Unionist Party, will be on board.
Here HuffPost UK takes you through what could be in Sunak’s deal and what the key sticking points are.
The protocol is a trading arrangement, negotiated during Brexit talks, that allows goods to be transported across the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland without the need for customs checks.
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The deal was aimed at protecting the delicate Good Friday Agreement by avoiding putting up a hard border between NI and the Republic.
However, unionist parties argue that the protocol instead places an effective border in the Irish Sea, undermining Northern Ireland’s place within the UK.
Goods moving from GB to NI currently have to undergo vigorous checks because they may end up in the Republic of Ireland, which remains in the EU’s single market. That has created friction and disruption for businesses which the UK and EU both want to solve.
The protocol is so disliked by the DUP, Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, that it has refused to take part in the power-sharing government with Sinn Fein at Stormont unless its concerns are resolved.
What are the main the problems with the protocol?
Unionists are concerned about the disruption to trade that has resulted from checks at Northern Ireland’s ports, as well as the fact that the country is being treated differently from the rest of the UK — something they regard as unacceptable.
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Alongside that, unionists do not like that Northern Ireland has to follow some EU rules, without having a say on how those rules work. They call this the “democratic deficit”.
A particular gripe for Brexiteers and unionists is the role that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) plays in solving potential disputes in Northern Ireland.
While the protocol has created an economic advantage for Northern Ireland in that it can sell both within the UK internal market and into the EU single market, because it has to follow some EU laws, it also falls under the jurisdiction of the ECJ.
Put simply, the DUP want the ECJ’s influence in Northern Ireland removed entirely.
What changes could there be?
Sunak is understood to have negotiated a new arrangement to avoid customs checks on the vast majority of goods travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland.
The new deal is expected to see the creation of “green” and “red” lanes.
Goods that are only destined for Northern Ireland will enter ports via the green lane and be subject to minimal checks. Those that are due to end up in the Republic of Ireland will go through the red lane and will have to undergo full EU checks.
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While Brexiteers and unionists want Northern Ireland to be free from the ECJ, for the EU its role is a red line — if the region is to enjoy the perks of being in the single market then it must abide by the rules like other EU member states.
The compromise that could be achieved is a reduced and minimal role for the ECJ.
Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said the reduction in trade red tape would lead to a “substantial scaling back” of the role of the ECJ — but he did refuse to rule out the court having a say on future legal cases, which could prove unpalatable to the DUP.
According to the Times, the deal could ensure that Brussels would have to notify Britain if it intends to apply any future regulations to Northern Ireland, which it could raise objections to.
The Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly may also be able to delay any potential regulation by having the power to put it to a vote.
The newspaper reports that if there are any disputes over the application of EU law in Northern Ireland, the region’s courts would consider it first and then decide whether to refer the issue to the ECJ.
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Will MPs back the deal?
The groups that Sunak needs to woo the hardest include the Brexiteers in the European Research Group (ERG) and the DUP — who want the complete eradication of EU law from Northern Ireland.
ERG chairman Mark Francois yesterday warned that the agreement must mean an end to EU laws being imposed on Northern Ireland and that there simply being “less of a role” for the ECJ was “not good enough”.
The Conservative former minister told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge: “What we want is a situation where EU law is expunged from Northern Ireland, so it is treated on the same basis as England, Scotland and Wales.”
Asked whether he would therefore not back any deal if the ECJ has any role in it, he said: “We have left the European Union. It doesn’t have that role now in England or in Scotland or in Wales.
“So, if we’re going to treat Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom, then we have to get rid of the EU law in Northern Ireland. We’ve been absolutely consistent on this.”
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The DUP has issued seven tests Sunak must meet if it is to back the deal, including that the people of Northern Ireland are given a say on the laws that affect them, that there are no checks moving between GB and NI and vice versa, and that there must be no border in the Irish Sea.
The DUP has also made it clear that it wants to see the text of the new legal framework — something the prime minister has not yet agreed to.
While Sunak promised that parliament would be allowed to “express its view” on the deal, it is not yet clear whether that will translate into a parliamentary vote.
However, if there is one, Sunak will want to avoid the scenes we saw under Theresa May — where there was deadlock in the Commons Chamber.
Opinion is divided over how important the DUP’s approval is — former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said the scale of any potential revolt against Sunak would “depend on the DUP”.
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“If the DUP are against it, I think there will be quite a significant number of Conservatives who are unhappy,” he told GB News.
