Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Douglas M. Charles, Professor of History, Penn State

Three converging events in the 1970s – the Watergate scandal, the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War and revelations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had abused his power to persecute people and organizations he viewed as political enemies – destroyed what formerly had been near-automatic trust in the presidency and the FBI.

In response, Congress enacted reforms designed to ensure that legal actions by the Department of Justice and the FBI, the department’s main investigative arm, would be insulated from politics. These included stronger congressional oversight, a 10-year term limit for FBI directors and investigative guidelines issued by the attorney general.

Some of these measures, however, were tenuous. For example, Justice Department leaders could alter FBI investigative guidelines at any time.

Donald Trump’s first presidential term seriously tested DOJ and FBI independence – notably, when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Trump claimed Comey mishandled a 2016 probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, but Comey also refused to pledge loyalty to the president.

Now, in Trump’s second term, prior guardrails have vanished. The president has installed loyalists at the DOJ and FBI who are dedicated to implementing his political interests.

As a historian of the FBI, I recognize the FBI has had only one other overtly political director in the past 50 years: L. Patrick Gray, who served for a year under President Richard Nixon. Gray was held accountable after he tried to help Nixon end the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Whether Trump’s current director, Kash Patel, has more staying power is unclear.

After Hoover

Ever since Hoover’s death in 1972, presidents have typically nominated independent candidates with bipartisan support and law enforcement roots
to run the FBI. Most nominees have been judges, senior prosecutors or former FBI or Justice Department officials.

While Hoover publicly proclaimed his FBI independent of politics, he sometimes did the bidding of presidents, including Nixon. Still, Nixon felt that Hoover had not been compliant enough, so in 1972 he selected Gray, a longtime friend and assistant attorney general, to be Hoover’s successor.

Gray took steps to move the bureau out of Hoover’s shadow. He relaxed strict dress codes for agents, recruited female agents and pointedly hired people from outside the agency – who were not indoctrinated in the Hoover culture – for administrative posts.

Gray asserted his authority with blunt force. FBI agents at field offices and at headquarters who resisted Gray’s power were censured, fired or transferred. Other senior officials opted to leave, including the bureau’s top fraud expert, cryptanalyst and skyjacking expert, and the head of its Crime Information Center.

Agents regarded these moves as a purge, and press reports claimed that bureau morale was at an all-time low, charges that Gray denied. According to FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, who became Gray’s second in command, 10 of 16 top FBI officials chose to retire, most of them notable Hoover men.

Gray surrounded himself with what journalist Jack Anderson called “sharp, but inexperienced, modish, young aides.” FBI insiders called these new hires the “Mod Squad,” a reference to the counterculture TV police series.

Gray helps Nixon

In contrast to Hoover, who had rarely left FBI headquarters and publicly avoided politics, Gray openly stumped for Nixon in the 1972 campaign. He was so rarely spotted at FBI headquarters that bureau insiders dubbed him “Two-Day Gray.” At the request of Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, Gray told field offices to help Nixon campaign surrogates by providing local crime information.

Gray cooperated with Nixon to stymie the FBI’s investigation of the 1972 Watergate break-in and the ensuing cover-up. He provided raw FBI investigative documents to the White House and burned documents from Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt’s White House safe.

When Nixon had CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters ask Gray, in the name of national security, to halt the FBI’s investigation, Felt and other agency insiders demanded that Gray get this order in writing. The White House backed down, but Nixon’s directive had been recorded. That tape became the so-called “smoking gun” evidence of a Watergate cover-up.

Felt, in classic Hoover fashion, then leaked information to discredit Gray, hoping to replace him. Gray resigned in disgrace.

While Felt never got the top job, he is now remembered as the prized anonymous source “Deep Throat,” who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate investigation. But it was internal FBI resistance, from Felt and agents at lower levels, that led to Gray’s departure.

Political from the start

Campaigning in 2024, Donald Trump vowed to “root out” his political opponents from government. Realizing he was a target because of his investigation of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump had nominated in 2017, resigned in December 2024 before Trump could fire him.

In Wray’s place Trump nominated loyalist Kash Patel, a lawyer who worked as a low-level federal prosecutor from 2013 to 2016 and then as a deputy national security appointee during Trump’s first term.

Patel publicly supported Trump’s vow to purge enemies and claimed the FBI was part of a “deep state” that was resistant to Trump. Patel promised to help dismantle this disloyal core and to “rebuild public trust” in the FBI.

Even before Patel was confirmed on Feb. 20, 2025, in an historically close 51-49 vote, the Justice Department began transferring thousands of agents away from national security matters to immigration duty, which was not a traditional FBI focus.

Hours after taking office, Patel shifted 1,500 agents and staff from FBI headquarters to field offices, claiming that he was streamlining operations.

Patel installed outsider Dan Bongino as deputy director. Bongino, another Trump loyalist, was a former New York City policeman and Secret Service agent who had become a full-time political commentator. He embraced a conspiracy theory positing the FBI was “irredeemably corrupt” and advocated “an absolute housecleaning.”

In February, New York City Special Agent in Charge James Dennehy told FBI staff “to dig in” and oppose expected and unprecedented political intrusions. He was forced out by March.

Patel then used lie-detector tests and carried out a string of high-profile firings of agents who had investigated either Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Some agents who were fired had been photographed kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington, D.C. – an action they said they took to defuse tensions with protesters.

In response, three fired agents are suing Patel for what they call a political retribution campaign. Ex-NFL football player Charles Tillman, who became an FBI agent in 2017, resigned in September 2025 in protest of Trump policies. Once again, there are assertions of a purge.

Will Patel be held accountable?

Patel’s actions as director so far illustrate that he is willing to use his position to implement the president’s political designs. When Gray tried to do this in the 1970s, accountability still held force, and Gray left office in disgrace. Gray participated in a cover-up of illegal behavior that became the subject of an impeachment proceeding. What Patel has done to date, at least what we know about, is not the equivalent – so far.

Today, Patel’s tenure rests solely upon pleasing the president. If formal accountability – a key element of a democracy – is to survive, it will have to come from Congress, whose Republican majority has so far not exercised its power to hold Trump or his administration accountable. Short of that, perhaps internal resistance within the administration or pressure from the public and the media might serve the oversight function that Congress, over the past eight months, has abrogated.

Douglas M. Charles 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.

– ref. History is repeating itself at the FBI as agents resist a director’s political agenda – https://theconversation.com/history-is-repeating-itself-at-the-fbi-as-agents-resist-a-directors-political-agenda-265637

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Christopher F. Meindl, Associate Professor of Geography, University of South Florida

“Behold … a vast circular expanse before you, the waters of which are so extremely clear as to be absolutely diaphanous or transparent as the ether.”

Naturalist William Bartram wrote these words in the 18th century as he gazed in wonder at Salt Springs, located in Ocala National Forest in what is now Marion County, Florida.

Springs are points where groundwater emerges at the earth’s surface, and Florida boasts more than 1,100 of them. North and central Florida comprise one of the largest concentrations of freshwater springs in the world.

Many of these springs provide a home to a variety of wild animals and plants. But they are also canaries in the coal mine for Florida’s groundwater system, because they draw upon the same groundwater that many Floridians depend on for drinking water, farm irrigation and industrial use.

Right now, many Florida springs suffer from reduced flow and habitat loss, as well as excessive algae and heavy pressure from human use. Because most of the state’s springs are not monitored by any research institution or government agency, the full scope of the problem remains unclear.

The state Legislature has designated 30 Outstanding Florida Springs whose health must be protected under the Florida Springs and Aquifer Protection Act of 2016. But 24 of the 30 were impaired by pollution – primarily nitrogen – at the time of this designation, and today, their condition has not improved.

In 2025, 26 of the 30 – the same 24 springs, plus two more – have been found to be impaired.

According to multiple reports and my own observation, many other popular springs are impaired by pollution as well. Since 2011, the state of Florida has spent roughly US$357 million on springs restoration.

As a geography professor, I study springs in the context of people and their use of water. My research has taught me that Florida’s springs vary based on location and local circumstances. Because of this, I believe reviving their health will require several multidimensional solutions.

Recalling healthy springs

What should a healthy spring look like? The answer to this can be harder to articulate than you might think. Many springs feature a visible boil at the water surface above the spring vent, crystal clear water, submerged grasses waving in the current, and a range of fish, turtles, snails and other aquatic animals hiding in the grasses.

Yet because many springs are changing slowly, changes in flow and water clarity can go unnoticed. Some scientists call this the shifting baseline syndrome: Each generation perceives springs in a slightly more degraded state, but absent prior observations, we assume that what we see is “normal.”

Fortunately, in the case of Florida springs, historical observations from naturalists and area residents give scientists clues going back centuries.

When Bartram visited Manatee Springs near Chiefland and the Suwannee River in the Big Bend in 1774, he wrote that the spring’s flow was “astonishing” and that “it is impossible to keep the boat or any other floating vessel over the fountain.”

Similarly, senior citizens who grew up in north central Florida in the early 20th century told writer P.C. Zick that spring flow at Ichetucknee Springs was once so strong that they could hear the spring boil before getting close enough to see it.

Both springs’ boils are noticeable today, but they are clearly not what they used to be.

When naturalist John James Audubon visited Volusia County’s De Leon Springs in 1832, he found that “The water was quite transparent, although of dark color.” And Bartram wrote of Salt Springs that the water was so clear, he thought he could reach out and touch fish that were 20 to 30 feet below the surface.

Water clarity in thriving springs fosters plenty of submerged grasses soaking up sunshine, along with a wide variety and large number of fish and other aquatic animals that depend on this vegetation. Bartram wrote that he spotted gar, trout, bream, “the barbed catfish, dreaded sting-ray, skate and flounder, spotted bass, sheeps head and ominous drum” at Salt Springs.

A multifaceted problem

Many Florida springs and their runs now suffer reduced flow, wear and tear from hundreds of thousands of well-meaning visitors, and excess algae.

And while some Florida springs, such as Polk County’s Kissingen Springs, have completely dried up, many more produce less flow than they used to.

It is easy to assume that bottled water companies are the reason for seriously reduced spring flows, and in at least one case, bottling spring water has raised concerns of overuse.

Yet a state report published in 2021 that examined water-bottling operations associated with springs found that bottlers were permitted to extract just over 5 million gallons per day from Florida’s springs – a tiny fraction of the 2.3 billion gallons of groundwater pumped each day from the Floridan Aquifer, which provides drinking water for more than 10 million people in the southeastern United States.

The most problematic reductions in spring flow are from significant groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation, heavy urban, mining or industrial water use, or in some cases a long-term rainfall deficit. Various springs suffer from one or more of these problems.

In addition, as Florida’s population and tourism have grown, so have the number of visitors to the state’s most popular springs. In 2019, Florida springs attracted more than 4 million visitors. During the summer, especially on weekends, some springs are so crowded that staff members have to turn away visitors. And in winter, springs that attract manatees can be equally crowded.

In shallow portions of springs and spring runs, this means thousands of happy feet trample and destroy vegetation. And when submerged grasses disappear, so do the aquatic animals that rely on them for food.

Unwanted algae

Finally, there is the mystery of excess algae. Algae naturally occurs in most springs, but today, many springs have so much that it clouds the water, or they have stringy filamentous algae that blankets the soil and rocks around a spring and along its run. Still others have algae that sticks to submerged aquatic plants, blocking vital sunlight.

The predominant narrative among many springs scientists, advocates and government officials is that rising nitrate levels in springs over the past few decades fuels the growth of excess algae. Nitrate, a form of nitrogen, is a plant nutrient.

Yet other scientists have suggested that reduced spring discharge creates slower-moving water, which loses its ability to push excess algae away.

Another hypothesis is that if dissolved oxygen levels temporarily fall below a certain threshold, it can kill off the snails and other animals that graze on the algae and keep it in check.

A balanced restoration plan

More than two-thirds of state-funded springs restoration projects over the past decade have been for some form of enhanced sewage treatment. This is because excess nitrogen is assumed to be the cause of excess algae in Florida springs, and Florida farmers are presumed to be in compliance with water quality regulations if they implement best management practices.

Enhanced sewage treatment is a good thing, especially in cases where human waste is clearly a pressing problem. In some cases, investing in advanced sewage treatment, shifting landowners from septic systems to sewage treatment plants or even enhanced treatment of storm water before it sinks into the ground clearly benefits springs.

However, shifting people from septic tanks to central sewage treatment is expensive. Based on the evidence and my own observations of various springs within Florida’s landscape, I believe that many springs need more than this single solution.

Some need shoreline stabilization to prevent erosion or rules that reduce human pressure on spring vegetation. Others need algae or sediment removed and native vegetation reintroduced.

In still other cases, it would help to purchase property to prevent harmful development or to retire farmland. And in nearly every case, the springs would benefit from Florida residents and businesses reducing water and fertilizer use.

And, restoring and maintaining the health of Florida’s 1,100 springs will require further study to tailor appropriate interventions to each one.

Christopher F. Meindl 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.

– ref. Florida’s 1,100 natural springs are under threat – a geographer explains how to restore them – https://theconversation.com/floridas-1-100-natural-springs-are-under-threat-a-geographer-explains-how-to-restore-them-263704

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Justin Reich, Professor of Digital Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

American technologists have been telling educators to rapidly adopt their new inventions for over a century. In 1922, Thomas Edison declared that in the near future, all school textbooks would be replaced by film strips, because text was 2% efficient, but film was 100% efficient. Those bogus statistics are a good reminder that people can be brilliant technologists, while also being inept education reformers.

I think of Edison whenever I hear technologists insisting that educators have to adopt artificial intelligence as rapidly as possible to get ahead of the transformation that’s about to wash over schools and society.

At MIT, I study the history and future of education technology, and I have never encountered an example of a school system – a country, state or municipality – that rapidly adopted a new digital technology and saw durable benefits for their students. The first districts to encourage students to bring mobile phones to class did not better prepare youth for the future than schools that took a more cautious approach. There is no evidence that the first countries to connect their classrooms to the internet stand apart in economic growth, educational attainment or citizen well-being.

New education technologies are only as powerful as the communities that guide their use. Opening a new browser tab is easy; creating the conditions for good learning is hard.

It takes years for educators to develop new practices and norms, for students to adopt new routines, and for families to identify new support mechanisms in order for a novel invention to reliably improve learning. But as AI spreads through schools, both historical analysis and new research conducted with K-12 teachers and students offer some guidance on navigating uncertainties and minimizing harm.

We’ve been wrong and overconfident before

I started teaching high school history students to search the web in 2003. At the time, experts in library and information science developed a pedagogy for web evaluation that encouraged students to closely read websites looking for markers of credibility: citations, proper formatting, and an “about” page. We gave students checklists like the CRAAP test – currency, reliability, authority, accuracy and purpose – to guide their evaluation. We taught students to avoid Wikipedia and to trust websites with .org or .edu domains over .com domains. It all seemed reasonable and evidence-informed at the time.

The first peer-reviewed article demonstrating effective methods for teaching students how to search the web was published in 2019. It showed that novices who used these commonly taught techniques performed miserably in tests evaluating their ability to sort truth from fiction on the web. It also showed that experts in online information evaluation used a completely different approach: quickly leaving a page to see how other sources characterize it. That method, now called lateral reading, resulted in faster, more accurate searching. The work was a gut punch for an old teacher like me. We’d spent nearly two decades teaching millions of students demonstrably ineffective ways of searching.

Today, there is a cottage industry of consultants, keynoters and “thought leaders” traveling the country purporting to train educators on how to use AI in schools. National and international organizations publish AI literacy frameworks claiming to know what skills students need for their future. Technologists invent apps that encourage teachers and students to use generative AI as tutors, as lesson planners, as writing editors, or as conversation partners. These approaches have about as much evidential support today as the CRAAP test did when it was invented.

There is a better approach than making overconfident guesses: rigorously testing new practices and strategies and only widely advocating for the ones that have robust evidence of effectiveness. As with web literacy, that evidence will take a decade or more to emerge.

But there’s a difference this time. AI is what I have called an “arrival technology.” AI is not invited into schools through a process of adoption, like buying a desktop computer or smartboard – it crashes the party and then starts rearranging the furniture. That means schools have to do something. Teachers feel this urgently. Yet they also need support: Over the past two years, my team has interviewed nearly 100 educators from across the U.S., and one widespread refrain is “don’t make us go it alone.”

3 strategies for prudent path forward

While waiting for better answers from the education science community, which will take years, teachers will have to be scientists themselves. I recommend three guideposts for moving forward with AI under conditions of uncertainty: humility, experimentation and assessment.

First, regularly remind students and teachers that anything schools try – literacy frameworks, teaching practices, new assessments – is a best guess. In four years, students might hear that what they were first taught about using AI has since proved to be quite wrong. We all need to be ready to revise our thinking.

Second, schools need to examine their students and curriculum, and decide what kinds of experiments they’d like to conduct with AI. Some parts of your curriculum might invite playfulness and bold new efforts, while others deserve more caution.

In our podcast “The Homework Machine,” we interviewed Eric Timmons, a teacher in Santa Ana, California, who teaches elective filmmaking courses. His students’ final assessments are complex movies that require multiple technical and artistic skills to produce. An AI enthusiast, Timmons uses AI to develop his curriculum, and he encourages students to use AI tools to solve filmmaking problems, from scripting to technical design. He’s not worried about AI doing everything for students: As he says, “My students love to make movies. … So why would they replace that with AI?”

It’s among the best, most thoughtful examples of an “all in” approach that I’ve encountered. I also can’t imagine recommending a similar approach for a course like ninth grade English, where the pivotal introduction to secondary school writing probably should be treated with more cautious approaches.

Third, when teachers do launch new experiments, they should recognize that local assessment will happen much faster than rigorous science. Every time schools launch a new AI policy or teaching practice, educators should collect a pile of related student work that was developed before AI was used during teaching. If you let students use AI tools for formative feedback on science labs, grab a pile of circa-2022 lab reports. Then, collect the new lab reports. Review whether the post-AI lab reports show an improvement on the outcomes you care about, and revise practices accordingly.

Between local educators and the international community of education scientists, people will learn a lot by 2035 about AI in schools. We might find that AI is like the web, a place with some risks but ultimately so full of important, useful resources that we continue to invite it into schools. Or we might find that AI is like cellphones, and the negative effects on well-being and learning ultimately outweigh the potential gains, and thus are best treated with more aggressive restrictions.

Everyone in education feels an urgency to resolve the uncertainty around generative AI. But we don’t need a race to generate answers first – we need a race to be right.

Justin Reich has received funding from Google, Microsoft, Apple, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative, the Hewlett Foundation, education publishers, and other organizations that are involved in technology and schools.

– ref. What past education technology failures can teach us about the future of AI in schools – https://theconversation.com/what-past-education-technology-failures-can-teach-us-about-the-future-of-ai-in-schools-265172

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Tami S. Rowen, Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Gynecologic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco

When President Donald Trump adamantly proclaimed in a press conference on Sept. 22, 2025, that pregnant women should not take Tylenol, I immediately thought about my own experiences during my second labor. While pushing for nearly three hours, I developed an infection in my uterus called chorioamnionitis, which occurs when bacteria infect the uterus, placenta and sometimes the baby’s bloodstream. I had a fever, and my baby’s heart rate was significantly elevated.

I remember feeling delirious; my colleague and friend, while delivering my baby, said she had never seen me in such a state. I couldn’t focus on pushing. I felt faint, and I worried about my baby.

And I remember the incredible relief that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, brought me when it lowered my fever and decreased my and my baby’s heart rate. After taking it, I was able to push with confidence and welcome my healthy daughter, who is now 7 and thriving.

As a practicing obstetrician and medical researcher with nearly two decades of experience taking care of pregnant patients, I have to make a dozen decisions about acetaminophen use on any given day when I am working in the hospital. I have examined the data as a researcher, clinician and educator. Central to our jobs is balancing the risks and benefits of any treatments.

The president’s words will not change how I practice, but I worry they will sow confusion in my patients and create fear of potential lawsuits for all practicing health care providers.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the leading organization that guides medical decisions on pregnancy and childbirth, has reiterated the safety and efficacy of acetaminophen use during pregnancy in light of the confusion surrounding Trump’s claims.

Mixed messages

I first looked into the data on the possible links between acetaminophen and developmental disorders a few years ago when I received a call from a woman who had recently learned she was pregnant and had caught the flu from her toddler child. She was concerned that Tylenol was dangerous for her developing baby.

Some studies do suggest links between acetaminophen use in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. But they lack a crucial distinction.

For one, they cannot pin down whether acetaminophen use during pregnancy itself was associated with the neurodevelopmental conditions in the child, or whether the fevers and other symptoms that led people to use the painkiller were playing a role in the outcome. Secondly, because those studies are based on statistical associations rather than controlled experiments, they cannot show cause and effect.

Since it is both unethical and nonfeasible to perform a controlled study evaluating the actual risks of acetaminophen use, the best proxy to control for environmental or genetic factors is to look at maternal exposure to acetaminophen and outcomes of more than one child in individual families.

That’s exactly what was done in a 2024 Swedish study that analyzed nearly 2.5 million children born from 1995 to 2019 in Sweden to mothers who had documented use of any medication during pregnancy. When looking at individual children, the researchers found up to a 5% increase in autism for those exposed to acetaminophen during pregnancy. However, when siblings were included in the analysis – controlling for environmental, medical and genetic factors that could have contributed – the small, elevated risk disappeared.

Fever during pregnancy is dangerous for mother and baby

There are many important reasons why doctors like me may recommend acetaminophen to a pregnant patient. One pregnant patient I treated who had the flu was so sick that she was septic, meaning an infection had spread throughout her body. Her 103-degree fever and dangerously low blood pressure threatened her and her fetus’s life.

My colleagues and I did not hesitate to treat her with acetaminophen. Our goal was to bring down not only her body temperature but also the fetus’s heart rate, since a high heart rate can place dangerous stress on the fetus. I shudder at the thought of what would have happened to her and her baby had she been denied this medication, or had she been afraid to use it as a result of hearing a statement from Trump and his health officials.

Fevers are very common during pregnancy, with about 20% of patients reporting they experienced one.

In fact, the evidence for a connection between fevers during pregnancy and autism is actually far stronger than any study connecting acetaminophen and autism. Recurrent fevers during pregnancy can increase the risk of autism by up to 300%, particularly in pregnant patients with severe or prolonged infections. This is especially true if a patient is hospitalized, as are most of my patients whose cases are serious enough to require hospitalization.

Pain during pregnancy

Beyond fevers, which can occur throughout pregnancy as well as during delivery, as I experienced myself, pregnant patients may seek to manage pain, which can occur for any number of reasons over the course of nine months. Pregnant people suffer from kidney stones, appendicitis or dental cavities that require root canal, just like people who are not pregnant. Up to 70% of pregnant people experience back pain, which can leave them unable to perform normal daily activities and care for their children. Should they be denied pain relief and told to tough it out?

The safest and most strongly recommended pain reliever for them is acetaminophen.

Other pain-relieving options such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, are generally off-limits during pregnancy because they can lead to closure of an important heart valve in the fetus as well as low amniotic fluid and other complications. Opioids carry the risk of the fetus developing an addiction and withdrawal, not to mention the risk of addiction in the mother.

The ability to guide people in pregnancy, childbirth and beyond is, for me, the most intimate and fulfilling part of medicine. The anxiety and fear that people bring to my office and to the delivery room about the many uncertainties associated with pregnancy and childbirth is palpable and legitimate.

That’s why it is critical that all recommendations are sound and evidence-based, with a clear understanding of the nuances and limitations of research studies. I know every time I look at my children I think of everything I can do to keep them safe, and I wonder what I could have done in the past to prevent any problems we currently face. We owe it to parents like me and all future parents to give them the most honest and scientific information possible.

Tami S. Rowen is an advisor for Roon, a health education company, and a health consultant for MCG, a health guidelines company.

– ref. As an OB-GYN, I see firsthand how misleading statements on acetaminophen leave expectant parents confused, fearful and lacking in options – https://theconversation.com/as-an-ob-gyn-i-see-firsthand-how-misleading-statements-on-acetaminophen-leave-expectant-parents-confused-fearful-and-lacking-in-options-265947

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By John W. Diamond, Director of the Center for Public Finance at the Baker Institute, Rice University

The economic consequences of the current federal government shutdown hinge critically on how long it lasts. If it is resolved quickly, the costs will be small, but if it drags on, it could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

That’s because the economy is already in a precarious state, with the labor market struggling, consumers losing confidence and uncertainty mounting.

As an economist who studies public finance, I closely follow how government policies affect the economy. Let me explain how a prolonged shutdown could affect the economy – and why it could be a tipping point to recession.

Direct impacts from a government shutdown

The partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1, 2025, as Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a deal on funding some portion of the federal government. A partial shutdown means that some funding bills have been approved, entitlement spending continues since it does not rely on annual appropriations, and some workers are deemed necessary and stay on the job unpaid.

While most of the 20 shutdowns that occurred from 1976 through 2024 lasted only a few days to a week, there are signs the current one may not be resolved so quickly. The economy would definitely take a direct hit to gross domestic product from a lengthy shutdown, but it’s the indirect impacts that could be more harmful.

The most recent shutdown, which extended over the 2018-2019 winter holidays and lasted 35 days, was the longest in U.S. history. After it ended, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the partial shutdown delayed approximately US$18 billion in federal discretionary spending, which translated into an $11 billion reduction in real GDP.

Most of that lost output was made up later once the shutdown ended, the CBO noted. It estimated that the permanent losses were about $3 billion – a drop in the bucket for the $30 trillion U.S. economy.

The indirect and more lasting impacts

The full impact may depend to a large extent on the psychology of the average consumer.

Recent data suggests that consumer confidence is falling as the stagnation in the labor market becomes more clear. Business confidence has been mixed as the manufacturing index continues to indicate the sector is in contraction, while other business confidence measures indicate mixed expectations about the future.

If the shutdown drags on, the psychological effects may lead to a larger loss of confidence among consumers and businesses. Given that consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity, a fall in consumer confidence could signal a turning point in the economy.

These indirect effects are in addition to the direct impact of lost income for federal workers and those that operate on federal contracts, which leads to reductions in consumption and production.

The risk of significant government layoffs, beyond the usual furloughs, could deepen the economic damage. Extensive layoffs would shift the losses from a temporary delay to a more permanent loss of income and human capital, reducing aggregate demand and potentially increasing unemployment spillovers into the private sector.

In short, while shutdowns that end quickly tend to inflict modest, mostly recoverable losses, a protracted shutdown – especially one involving layoffs of a significant number of government workers – could inflict larger, lasting impacts on the economy.

US economy is already in distress

This is all occurring as the U.S. labor market is flashing warnings.

Payrolls grew by only 22,000 in August, with July and June estimates revised down by 21,000. This follows payroll growth of only 73,000 in July, with May and June estimates revised down by 258,000.
In addition, preliminary annual revisions to the employment data show the economy gained 911,000 fewer jobs in the previous year than had been reported.

Long-term unemployment is also rising, with 1.8 million people out of work for more than 27 weeks – nearly a quarter of the total number of unemployed individuals.

At the same time, AI adoption and cost-cutting could further reduce labor demand, while an aging workforce and lower immigration shrink labor supply. Fed Chair Jerome Powell refers to this as a “curious kind of balance” in the labor market.

In other words, the job market appears to have come to a screeching halt, making it difficult for recent graduates to find work. Recent graduate unemployment – that is, those who are 22 to 27 years old – is now 5.3% relative to the total unemployment rate of 4.3%.

The latest data from the ADP employment report, which measures only private company data, shows that the economy lost 32,000 jobs in September. That’s the biggest decline in 2½ years. While that’s worrying, economists like me usually wait for the official Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers to come out to confirm the accuracy of the payroll processing firm’s report.

The government data that was supposed to come out on Oct. 3 might have offered a possible counterpoint to the bad ADP news, but due to the shutdown BLS will not be releasing the report.

Problems Fed rate cuts can’t fix

This will only increase the uncertainty surrounding the health of the U.S. economy. And it adds to the uncertainty created by on-again, off-again tariffs as well as the newly imposed tariffs on lumber, furniture and other goods.

Against this backdrop, the Fed is expected to lower interest rates at least two more times this year to stimulate consumer and business spending following its September quarter-point cut. This raises the risk of reigniting inflation, but the cooling labor market is a more immediate concern for the Fed.

While lower short-term rates may help at the margin, I believe they cannot resolve the deeper challenges, such as massive government deficits and debt, tight household budgets, a housing affordability crisis and a shrinking labor force.

The question now is not will the Fed cut rates, because it likely will, but whether that cut will help, particularly if the shutdown lasts weeks or more. Monetary policy alone cannot overcome the uncertainty created by tariffs, the lack of fiscal restraint, companies focused on cutting costs by replacing people with technology, the impact of the shutdown and the fears of consumers about the future.

Lower interest rates may buy time, but they won’t solve these structural problems facing the U.S. economy.

John W. Diamond 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.

– ref. US economy is already on the edge – a prolonged government shutdown could send it tumbling over – https://theconversation.com/us-economy-is-already-on-the-edge-a-prolonged-government-shutdown-could-send-it-tumbling-over-266327