Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alex Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor & Director, School of Government & Public Policy, University of Arizona

The phrase “concentration camp” is freighted with dark historical meaning. Most people hear it and instinctively think of concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews and other minority populations during the Holocaust.

But the use and name of concentration camps originated far earlier. In the late 1800s, Spanish military officials used concentration camps – reconcentrados – during their 1896–97 Cuban campaign to isolate civilians from rebels, resulting in widespread death and disease.

We are scholars whose research into international relations and conflict includes studying historical and modern uses of these systems of camps as a form of repression.

In recent peer-reviewed research, we identified four characteristics that define what qualifies as a concentration camp system: targeting groups of civilians for imprisonment; enclosed spaces where the state controls who enters and exits; departure from standard detention practices; and abuse and neglect. We then created a dataset detailing 150 systems of camps used globally since 1896 that fit this criteria. This includes the U.S. internment of more than 125,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during World War II, the Argentine military junta’s use of camps in their mid-1970s campaign to reorganize society, and Vladimir Putin’s use of so-called filtration camps in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Our use of the term “concentration camp” is not meant to sensationalize or diminish its historical meaning, particularly as it relates to the Holocaust.

Rather, identifying such systems early is how the concept of “never again” – the promise to prevent mass atrocities, such as genocide, and combat extremism – can be translated into meaningful policy action from the public and policymakers.

Based on our criteria, we believe the network of detention facilities maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fits into this broader definition of a system of concentration camps.

The evolution of concentration camps

After the use of concentration camps by the Spanish in Cuba, British officials adopted the practice in southern Africa during their counterinsurgency campaign against the Boer population – descendants of Dutch, French and German Protestant settlers – at the turn of the 20th century. The British detained 110,000 Boers and 37,000 indigenous Blacks in their network of 120 camps. At least 27,000 Boers and 14,000 Blacks died as a result of rampant disease and insufficient food supplies.

By the time major German military operations in Eastern Europe began in 1939, states around the world had erected more than 30 systems of concentration camps, according to our research.

Yet the term soon took on an even darker meaning. Concentration camps were employed most infamously as part of the Nazi regime’s brutal genocide in the 1930s and ’40s. In its 12 years in power, the Nazi government opened more than 1,000 concentration camps in which it detained millions of individuals. In addition to facilitating the Nazi Holocaust and other group-targeted violence against minoritized and non-German populations, Nazi security forces used the camps to repress political opposition and provide labor to the German civilian and military economies.

Though few camp systems have reached the severity or scale of those used during the Holocaust, modern camps often pursue similar goals of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, practices such as torture and an absence of due process.

In our study, we found 93 examples of systems of concentration camps used since the conclusion of World War II. This includes more than 1,200 camps erected by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang province as part of an expansive policy of discrimination against the Uyghur population there. The Chinese government has detained more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs since at least 2017, stripping them of their traditions, cultures and languages.

Our 4 criteria further explained

Our research confirms that the word “concentration” is critical to describing these camps. Two key criteria of the camps are the concentration of large numbers of targeted civilians into spaces, which are then secured by small numbers of captors who control who enters and exits the camps.

A third criteria we examined identifies concentration camps as “irregular” insofar as they operate outside of legal frameworks that regulate prisons, refugee camps and immigration detention centers. Concentration camps are run by separate authorities that deny detainees due process, such as formal criminal charges, legal representation or a fair trial.

The last criteria we used as we evaluated camps was the presence of squalor and routine violence. Specifically, we looked for evidence that detainees regularly experienced at least two forms of abuse, including but not limited to torture, beatings, mass killing, sexual violence, psychological abuse, lack of food, lack of water, lack of shelter, lack of healthcare, overcrowding and spread of disease.

ICE detention centers

As of April 2026, there are more than 240 active ICE detention facilities across the U.S.

Migrants held in these camps are not free to leave, though some are given a choice: self-deport − agreeing to leave the country immediately − or remain in custody. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, migrants have filed more than 34,000 habeas corpus petitions challenging their confinement without trial, exercising a constitutional right.

Based on the criteria we developed, ICE detention camps fit in the spectrum of a system of concentration camps.

Starting with the first criteria, groups of civilians are being targeted by ICE, often based on their perceived ethnicity.

Though ICE’s stated mission is to detain those without documented legal status, many arrests have been based on physical appearance and location rather than evidence of unlawful presence in the United States.

More than 272,000 people arrested by ICE in the first six months of Trump’s second term were booked into ICE detention facilities. While deportations are increasing at a rapid rate, at least 60,000 people remain in detention facilities as of April 2026 – neither released nor deported. These numbers easily exceed counts of individuals held in immigrant detention centers in earlier years.

Hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained, without justification and against their will, by ICE. The number of individuals arrested in homes and communities, often without an arrest warrant signed by a judge, reached more than 400 people per day in October 2025.

In terms of the second part of our definition, these people are being concentrated in spaces where the Trump administration controls who, when and under what conditions people may enter or exit these facilities. Access has been restricted for lawyers, family members of migrants, journalists and members of Congress.

As for the third criteria, the ICE detention centers also operate separately from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. ICE detention is managed by the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations under the Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with private prison companies.

As of April 2026, more than 70% of migrants had no criminal conviction, while many of the remainder were held for minor offenses, such as traffic violations. Failure to provide trials for migrants, particularly those who do not pose these risks, is a departure from established norms.

Our framework’s final criterion is purposeful abuse or neglect. This includes the practice of inflicting direct physical harm or the failure to provide basic necessities – food, water, shelter, healthcare.

Numerous reports have highlighted cutoffs in payments to third-party medical providers who gave care to detainees and a 36% decline in mandated detention facility inspections by ICE’s internal Office of Detention Oversight. These actions have resulted in unsanitary conditions and medical neglect in these facilities. Twenty-three deaths were reported between October 2025 and March 2026, putting the current fiscal year on pace to be the deadliest in over 20 years.

As scholars, we argue that ICE detention centers meet the criteria for concentration camps. We do so not to be provocative but to provide precise language, rather than euphemisms, so people can heed the warnings of atrocities committed in the past.

As journalist Andrea Pitzer argues in her writing about concentration camps, the longer camps exist, the more they shift from a transient emergency measure to a permanent pillar of state function.

Malia Hirasa and Sydney Horton, undergraduate students at the University of Arizona, contributed to this story.

Alex Braithwaite received funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through grant award 2213615.

Rachel D. Van Nostrand 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. When immigration detention becomes a system of concentration: Lessons from research on 150 historical cases – https://theconversation.com/when-immigration-detention-becomes-a-system-of-concentration-lessons-from-research-on-150-historical-cases-277728

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Robert I. Harris, Assistant Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects nationwide retail gasoline prices to average near US$4.30 a gallon for April 2026 – the highest monthly average of the year. The political response has been familiar. Georgia has suspended its state gas tax, other states are weighing their own tax holidays, and the White House has issued a temporary waiver of a law known as the Jones Act in hopes of moving more domestic fuel to East Coast ports.

As an energy economist, I am often asked about what contributes to gas prices and what different policies can do to affect them.

The price of a retail gallon of gas is the sum of four things: the cost of crude oil, refining, distribution and marketing, and taxes.

In nationwide figures from January 2026, crude oil accounted for about 51% of the pump price, refining roughly 20%, distribution and marketing about 11% and taxes about 18%. That mix shifts with conditions: When crude oil prices spike, that can drive more than 60% of the price; when the price drops, taxes and logistics are larger shares of the cost.

Crude oil is the biggest ingredient

Because the price of crude oil is the largest element, most of the price at the pump is derived from the global oil market.

Usually, big swings in crude prices come mainly from shifts in global demand and expectations – not from supply disruptions, according to widely cited research in 2009 by the economist Lutz Kilian.

But what is happening in early 2026 with the war in Iran is one of the exceptions: a classic supply shock. Severe disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Middle East oil infrastructure have taken millions of barrels a day off the global market.

Most drivers generally can’t quickly reduce how much they drive or how much gas they use when prices rise, so gasoline demand doesn’t change much in the short run. That means a jump in crude costs tends to result in people paying more rather than driving less.

Refining, regulations and the California puzzle

Refining turns crude into gasoline at industrial scale. The U.S. doesn’t have a single gasoline market, though. Roughly a quarter of U.S. gasoline is a cleaner-burning blend of petroleum-derived chemicals called “reformulated gasoline,” which is required in urban areas across 17 states and the District of Columbia to reduce smog.

California uses an even stricter formulation that few out-of-state refineries make. California is also geographically isolated: No pipelines bring gasoline in from other U.S. refining regions.

California’s gasoline prices have long run above the national average, explained in part by higher state taxes and stricter environmental rules. But since a refinery fire in Torrance, California, in 2015 reduced production capacity, the state’s prices have been about 20 to 30 cents a gallon higher than what those factors would indicate.

Energy economist and University of California, Berkeley, professor Severin Borenstein has called this the “mystery gasoline surcharge” and attributes it to the fact that there isn’t as much competition between refineries or gas stations in California as in other states. California’s own Division of Petroleum Market Oversight says the surcharge cost the state’s drivers about $59 billion from 2015 to 2024. It’s not exactly clear who is getting that money, but it could be gas stations themselves or refineries, through complex contracts with gas stations.

Getting the gas into your car

The distribution and marketing category covers the costs of everything involved in getting the gasoline from the refinery gate to your tank.

Gasoline moves by pipeline, ship, rail and truck to wholesale terminals, and then by local delivery truck to service stations.

At the retailer’s end, the key factors are station rent and labor, the cost to buy gasoline in bulk to be able to sell it, credit card fees of as much as 6 to 10 cents a gallon at current prices, and franchise fees paid to the national brand, such as Sunoco or ExxonMobil, for permission to put their branding on the gas station.

Most gas station operators net only a few cents per gallon on fuel itself – which is why many gas stations are really convenience stores with pumps out front. Borenstein and some of his collaborators have also documented that retail gas prices rise quickly when wholesale costs climb but fall slowly when wholesale costs drop.

The question of gas tax holidays

The federal government charges a tax on fuel, of 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.3 cents a gallon for diesel. States charge their own taxes, ranging from 70.9 cents a gallon for gas in California to 8.95 cents in Alaska.

When gas prices rise, many politicians start talking about temporarily suspending their state’s gas tax. That does reduce prices, but not as much as politicians – or consumers – might hope. Research on past gas tax holidays has found that consumers get about 79% of the reduction in gas taxes. That means oil companies and fuel retailers keep about one-fifth of the tax cut for themselves rather than passing that savings to the public.

Gas tax holidays also reduce funding for what the taxes are designed to pay for, typically roads and bridges. That pushes road and bridge upkeep costs onto future drivers and general taxpayers.

There is an additional problem, too: Taxes on gasoline are supposed to charge drivers for some of the costs their driving imposes on everyone else – carbon emissions, local air pollution, congestion and crashes. But Borenstein has found that U.S. fuel tax levels are already far below the true cost to society. Removing the tax on drivers effectively raises the costs for everyone else.

The Jones Act: A small number that adds up

The 1920 Jones Act is a federal law that requires cargo moving between U.S. ports to travel on vessels built and registered in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed primarily by U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Of the world’s 7,500 oil tankers, only 54 meet this requirement. Only 43 of these can transport refined fuels such as gasoline.

So, despite significant refining capacity on the Gulf Coast, some U.S. gasoline is exported overseas even as the Northeast imports fuel, in part reflecting the relatively high cost of moving fuel between U.S. ports.

Economists Ryan Kellogg and Rich Sweeney estimate that the law raises East Coast gasoline prices by about a penny and a half per gallon on average, costing drivers roughly $770 million a year. In light of the war’s effect on gas prices, the Trump administration has temporarily suspended the Jones Act requirements – an action more commonly taken when hurricanes knock out Gulf Coast refineries and pipeline networks.

What moves the number

The result of all these factors is that the price that drivers see at the pump mostly reflects the global price of crude, plus a stack of domestic costs, only some of which are inefficient.

Tax holidays give a partial, short-lived rebate. Jones Act waivers trim pennies, though permanent repeal may cause more fundamental changes, such as reduced rail and truck transport of all goods, which could lower costs, emissions and infrastructure damage associated with cargo transportation. Harmonizing fuel blends across states and seasons may lower prices somewhat, but likely at the expense of increased emissions.

Ultimately, the best protection against oil price shocks is a more efficient gas-burning vehicle, or one that doesn’t burn gasoline at all. In the meantime, the best I can offer as an economist is clarity about what that $4.30 actually buys.

Robert I. Harris 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. What’s in the price of a gallon of gas? – https://theconversation.com/whats-in-the-price-of-a-gallon-of-gas-281494

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Vidya Mani, Associate Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia; Cornell University

The boom in data center construction is taking up much of the supply of high-tech components, especially processor and memory chips. This demand is squeezing consumer device makers, which are having trouble acquiring enough chips.

This is happening even though data center servers and smartphones use different types of chips. The key distinction between consumer electronics and data centers is what they need chips to be optimized for. Smartphones and PCs require low power use, thermal efficiency and tight integration. Data centers that run AI systems such as large language models, or LLMs, require maximum compute power, memory bandwidth and storage throughput.

To meet these needs, consumer devices tend to rely on systems-on-a-chip – chips that combine processing and storage – with dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, and NAND, a type of nonvolatile memory. In contrast, AI servers rely on graphics processing units, or GPUs, or other accelerator processors combined with high-bandwidth memory chips.

I study global supply chains and how businesses respond to market constraints within these supply chains. The reason for the consumer electronics supply crunch has to do with the nature of the chip market: its concentration and high costs and how it responds to boom-and-bust cycles.

AI is not replacing consumer electronics; it is reorganizing the chip market around new priorities for specific chip characteristics. Data centers are pulling capital and scarce memory capacity toward the production of accelerator processors and high-bandwidth memory and the data handling and electronics equipment that surround them.

A winner-takes-most industry

Chip manufacturing behaves less like a competitive commodity market and more like a layered oligopoly. Scale matters because the leading firms can reinvest in research, improve yields, secure equipment and deepen customer relationships. In the case of graphics processor chips, designers such as NVIDIA, which has 85% market share, depend on advanced semiconductor foundries such as TSMC, which has more than 70% market share, to manufacture chips using extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from ASML, a monopoly.

A small number of producers both design and manufacture memory chips. Currently, three companies – Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix – hold a majority market share in the memory chips market. Long development cycles, extremely high fixed costs and the need for technological leadership reinforce concentration over time.

Consumer electronics firms such as Apple, along with other technology firms such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Xiaomi, increasingly design their own processor chips, because these chips shape the user experience, AI performance, power efficiency and system-level differentiation. Manufacturing memory chips, by contrast, is extraordinarily capital-intensive; requires high precision, efficiency and production line utilization; and is dominated by a few incumbent suppliers.

Since 2000, the memory chip industry has moved through repeated cycles of overcapacity and undersupply: the post-dot-com collapse, the 2007-09 glut, the tighter 2010s after consolidation, the severe 2022-23 downturn, and the AI-driven tightness of 2024-25. This has led to high levels of concentration in the industry and chipmakers that are hesitant to add capacity. Producers often operate chip fabrication plants, or fabs, at or near capacity due to high fixed costs. The risk of having expensive facilities go underused keeps chipmakers from bringing new fabs online in lockstep with demand increases.

Consolidation has reduced the number of major suppliers, who now increasingly direct investment toward higher-margin products rather than broadly adding capacity. That shift is important for understanding why AI demand is tightening chip supplies even as demand for consumer electronics continues to grow.

How the AI data center boom redirects capacity

The AI boom has changed memory demand from a broad consumer cycle into a more segmented market centered on high-bandwidth memory chips. In 2023, Micron cut capital spending and the company’s fabs operated below levels needed to justify their cost. By 2026, however, Micron was reporting strong AI demand, record data center DRAM revenue and rapidly rising high-bandwidth memory sales.

This shift matters because the market for supplying memory cannot respond quickly. Opening new fabs requires years of planning, large capital commitments and investments in advanced process equipment and skills. Memory chip manufacturers are likely to remain cautious about expanding capacity even as their profitability improves, with 2026 spending focused more on technology upgrades and high-value products than on large increases in chip supply.

In practical terms, AI is not simply lifting all memory demand equally; it is redirecting scarce capacity toward massive, or hyperscale, data centers and server markets first.

Can consumer electronics catch up?

Consumer electronics can catch up, assuming the manufacturers can weather the cost increases from tariffs and geopolitical pressures. One way they could is by making investments to enable small AI language models to run on consumer devices, a move analysts expect the companies to attempt.

Apple shifted a growing share of U.S.-bound iPhone production out of China to India and moved much of its iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and AirPods assembly for the U.S. market to Vietnam to lower the company’s tariff burden. Yet relocation does not eliminate cost pressure. Manufacturing iPhones in India still costs roughly 5% to 8% more than in China, and in some cases closer to 10%, because supplier ecosystems, logistics and production efficiency remain stronger in China.

Rising geopolitical tensions between the United States and China led to supply constraints and export controls on critical minerals and chip components, raising input costs for consumer electronics manufacturers. This led to higher total import costs and reduced margins for firms unable to pass costs fully to consumers, leading to further consolidation in supply.

Consumer devices do not need to replicate data center infrastructure to offer AI on their products. Their opportunity lies in running small language models on-device for summarization, rewriting, search, assistance and lightweight reasoning. Doing so, however, creates a distinct hardware requirement. Phones and laptops need to incorporate multiple functions on the same chip, combining processing capability with fast local memory and enough storage to keep on-device AI responsive. Apple’s current device requirements for the company’s AI, Apple Intelligence, also show that older phones often lack the compute power and memory needed for useful on-device AI.

To adopt AI, device makers need to redesign their products with higher-end chips – both processors and memory – that can piggyback on the AI model-oriented growth in the chips market driven by the data center boom. Such a shift by the device makers could also provide a useful backstop for the memory chipmakers in case the projected AI and data center growth does not materialize in the medium to long term, a boom-and-bust cycle that memory chipmakers have had to endure many times in the past.

What this means for the wider economy

The AI and data center boom is redistributing capital, supplier attention and pricing power across the broader economy. Sectors with limited purchasing leverage are especially vulnerable when chip supplies tighten. For example, medical technology accounts for less than 1% of the overall chip market, leaving essential equipment manufacturers exposed during shortages.

In contrast, sectors linked to power delivery and digital infrastructure may benefit from the boom because they try to keep up with demand for cloud services and electrification. The International Energy Agency estimates that data centers consumed about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024 and notes that AI is accelerating the deployment of high-performance servers, which implies stronger demand for the grid, storage, cooling and networking equipment around them.

For the consumer electronics industry, the strategic task is not to try to match the AI data centers chip for chip but to build differentiated, energy-efficient, on-device AI services while managing higher supply chain and tariff risks.

And for consumers looking to buy phones, games and laptops, because of high demand from data centers, the next few years are likely to bring higher prices, shortages and delayed product releases.

Vidya Mani has received funding from LMI. I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue and a member of GRI

– ref. AI data center boom is leaving consumer electronics short of chips − even though they don’t use the same kinds – https://theconversation.com/ai-data-center-boom-is-leaving-consumer-electronics-short-of-chips-even-though-they-dont-use-the-same-kinds-277069

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Allyson Gold, Professor of Law, Wake Forest University

Housing costs are eating up more and more of Americans’ monthly budgets.

Half of renters and a quarter of homeowners are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than a third of their income to pay their rent or mortgage. Roughly 27% of renters are spending more than half of their income on rent.

In March 2026, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan housing bill to boost housing supply in the United States. More supply, the thinking goes, will staunch the surge in homes prices and rents. In the nation’s 50 biggest cities, for example, rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments have increased roughly 40%, not adjusted for inflation, since 2020. This legislation, however, is currently stuck in the House, overshadowed by issues like the Iran war and Supreme Court decisions.

While housing reforms in the U.S. remain gridlocked, the U.K. has been dealing with its own housing problems: 70% of Britons say housing unaffordability has become a national crisis. Across England, rents have spiraled, homelessness has risen and deteriorating and dangerous housing conditions have threatened the health of tenants.

In response, the U.K. Parliament passed the Renters’ Rights Act, a major housing law that officials described as a “once in a generation” set of reforms.

More power for tenants

The bill became law after receiving Royal Assent and took effect in England on May 1, 2026.

Its signature reform is to eliminate no-fault eviction, also known as Section 21 eviction. Under a Section 21 eviction, landlords were able to terminate a month-to-month or fixed-term tenancy without fault, even if tenants paid rent on time and complied with the lease. The only stipulation was they had to provide two months’ notice.

This will sound somewhat familiar to American readers: The vast majority of jurisdictions in the U.S. allow a landlord to terminate a month-to-month tenancy for any reason, as long as the landlord provides adequate notice.

In North Carolina, for example, where I live, a tenant with a month-to-month lease is only legally entitled to a seven-day notice of eviction under state law.

In England, Section 21 evictions were responsible for a 50% increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness from 2021 to 2022. Going forward, a landlord can still remove a tenant for a valid reason, but tenants will no longer be vulnerable to eviction when they have done nothing wrong.

The legislation also limits rent increases. Under the new law, a landlord may only increase the rent to market price, must provide at least two months’ notice before an increase can take effect, and can only increase the rent once per year. A tenant who suspects their landlord has imposed an “above market” rent increase can bring the landlord to court.

It’s important that this change is occurring in tandem with the discontinuation of no-fault eviction. Without restrictions on rent increases, a landlord who lost the ability to use no-fault eviction could still empty a property by simply jacking up the rent to a rate that the tenant could not afford.

Finally, the law also takes steps to improve the conditions of England’s private rental housing stock by applying certain existing public housing standards, like strict timelines to address mold and damp, to the private rental sector.

It gives local housing authorities the ability to levy fines against private landlords who fail to meet these new standards. The new law also creates a rental housing registry that British tenants can search to get information about a prospective landlord or property. This will give tenants crucial information about a property before moving in and entering into a lease with a landlord.

A legislative pie in the sky?

Even though housing advocates have long pushed for these types of reforms to U.S. landlord-tenant law, the current legislation under consideration by Congress doesn’t directly address renters’ rights. Instead, it seeks to streamline costs and regulations for builders to boost the housing supply, while giving access to more financing for buyers.

One reason renters’ rights are often not addressed at the federal level is the U.S. system of federalism, which divides authority between the federal government and the states. By and large, landlord-tenant regulation falls within the realm of state or municipal government.

Some state and local governments have used this power to enact rental housing policy. For example, Oregon largely prohibits eviction without cause. Chicago keeps a Building Department registry that tenants can search to see if a prospective rental has a history of building code violations. And New York City’s rent regulations have survived multiple court challenges over the years. As recently as 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated that states have broad discretion to regulate the landlord-tenant relationship, which includes implementing rent control and rent stabilization arrangements.

This jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction approach means that an American tenant’s rights can vary dramatically based on where they happen to live.

When crisis expands the window of possibility

That said, the U.S. federal government has intervened to protect tenants during acute crises.

In 2009, during the mortgage foreclosure crisis, Congress passed legislation to prevent tenants from experiencing eviction if banks foreclosed on the homes they occupied.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used its public health powers to institute a nationwide eviction moratorium to slow the spread of infection. Though the Supreme Court struck down the order 11 months later, the fears that opponents to the moratorium raised didn’t pan out: There was no widespread, coordinated nonpayment of rents, nor did the rental housing supply collapse.

These reforms helped widen the Overton window – the range of policies deemed politically possible.

If unaffordability in the U.S. continues to worsen, perhaps rental housing issues will receive more political oxygen, with more legislation proposed at the federal level.

Until then, cities and states will have to continue leading the way.

Allyson Gold 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. England’s ‘once in a generation’ housing law takes effect as US housing legislation sits in congressional purgatory – https://theconversation.com/englands-once-in-a-generation-housing-law-takes-effect-as-us-housing-legislation-sits-in-congressional-purgatory-281504

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Geoff Childs, Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis

Imagine a place where every home has paraphernalia for distilling spirits, where there is a toast for nearly any occasion, and where your taxes – paid in grain, not cash – are deposited straight into a communal still.

Welcome to Nubri.

A valley in northern Nepal, Nubri is home to roughly 3,000 Tibetan Buddhist highlanders. Over the course of three decades, I have spent a lot of time in Nubri studying the interplay of demographic trends and social change. Often that has been in the company of an ethnomusicologist colleague, Mason Brown, who studies local musical traditions.

While conducting research, we both became aficionados of the local intoxicants chang and arak, and we were taught how to brew and distill them by Nubri resident and research collaborator Jhangchuk Sangmo Thakuri.

Other scholars of Tibetan and Himalayan societies have commented on the importance of chang for ritual purposes and as a social lubricant. In Nubri, which is predominantly ethnic Tibetan, we learned firsthand the integral role both drinks had in maintaining local rituals, the economy and developing social relationships.

The basics of brewing

Let’s start with the basics. Chang is a fermented, noncarbonated beverage made from corn, barley or rice. A starter culture, partially derived from a previous fermentation, is added to warm, boiled grain, which is then stuffed into a container with water and sealed. The fermentation process takes a few days to two weeks, depending on variables such as temperature and one’s preference for the brew’s strength.

To make arak, the mash of fermented grain is transferred to a still that is placed over an open fire. The evaporated liquid – essentially concentrated alcohol – condenses and drops into a catch basin when it contacts a vessel at the top filled with cool water. The distillation process takes roughly an hour.

Chang is unfiltered and often contains a fair amount of sediments. It is low in alcohol – roughly 3% to 6% ABV, or equivalent to a European lager – and is considered a refreshing drink, especially while working in hot weather. Although it varies by brew, chang is generally slightly sweet, with a tinge or sourness.

Arak, by contrast, is clear and dry, similar in flavor and mouthfeel to Japanese sake. Based on taste and effect, we estimate that most batches clock in at 15% to 25% ABV – stronger than a glass of wine, but less potent than, say, whiskey.

All but the poorest households in Nubri own a still; those who don’t borrow one from neighbors when they have surplus grain.

To hell … or glory?

Evidence suggests that chang has been consumed by Tibetans for centuries. A story purportedly from the seventh century describes how court officials were dispatched by an emperor to find a boy with magical powers. When they encountered a child and asked where his parents were, he responded, “Father has gone to search for words. Mother has gone to search for eyes.” The father showed up carrying chang and the mother bearing fire.

Despite chang’s antiquity, Tibetans have their share of teetotalers and prohibitionists. For example, 15th-century Buddhist lama Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo argued, “Since one (who drinks) created and accumulated the karma of a mad person, one’s body will come to ruin, and after one has died, one will be born among the hell-beings of the lower realms of existence.”

The message is elegant in its simplicity – drink and you’ll go to hell!

Kunga Zangpo’s warning aside, intoxicating beverages have long been valued in Nubri society.

Writing in the mid-18th century, Pema Wangdu, a Nubri lama famous for composing songs of spiritual realization, recounts how when seeking guidance from a local lama, he needed to present an offering, so he filched chang from home while his family members were working in the fields.

Pema Wangdu’s main teacher, Pema Döndrub, also from Nubri, describes a visit to a neighboring valley in which an official asks local villagers to bring the lama and his entourage some chang. Apparently they brought more than enough, because Pema Döndrub retorted, “We kept the tasty chang and sent the unappealing stuff away.”

Chang is also commonly mentioned in Nubri’s folk songs, which have been passed down for generations. In one, the singer rejoices that he has had multiple windfalls of good luck: He lives in a civilized country, inhabits a golden chamber and has an elegant foal and many sheep. Proclaiming that his prosperity is deserved, the singer commands his wife, “Don’t even think of giving me less chang!”

A drink for all occasions

Nowadays, people in Nubri prefer the more potent arak over chang. This is evident during Buddhist rituals where arak provides some participants with stamina and a bit of levity. Others, especially monks, abstain.

The drinks are procured through the local temple’s tax system. When a couple form a new household, they accept a mandatory loan of roughly 100 kilos of grain from the village temple. Every subsequent year they are required to repay one-third of the loan as interest.

Each ritual has an associated “Loan Document” that specifies what percentage of a household’s annual repayment is used to support that event. The system ensures that a tremendous amount of the harvest is acquired so that it can be fermented and then processed in the temple’s stills.

An associated document titled “Rules (Made By) the Monasteries” specifies when, how much and to whom arak should be distributed throughout the ritual.

Each serving event has a name. There is “connection chang” honoring the auspicious first gathering of ritual participants, “commencement chang” to mark the beginning of each day, and “bedtime chang” for the end of each day.

During an offering to the deities, participants are served “victory chang,” signaling a wish that their entreaties are successful, and “good fortune chang” in anticipation of positive outcomes.

One more for the road

A final vignette helps illustrate how chang and arak are woven into Nubri’s social and religious fabric.

In May 2023, we departed Nubri after completing a long research stint. Dorje Dundul, an old friend, accompanied us to a religious structure marking the outer boundary of his village. From the depths of his tunic, he extracted a flask filled with arak, inserted the stem of a medicinal herb into the liquid while chanting prayers, then sprinkled droplets into the four directions as an offering to ensure our safe passage.

Afterward, he handed us the flask and urged, “Chö, chö” (“Drink, drink”). We each took a long draft of the warming liquid.

He then capped the flask, placed it into the side pocket of our backpack and said, “This is lamchang (road beer). Travel safely.”

During the grueling descent to the lowlands, the parting gift fortified us while providing a constant reminder of Dorje’s concern for our well-being. “One for the road” never felt so good.

Ethnomusicologist Mason Brown and Nubri researcher Jhangchuk Sangmo Thakuri contributed to this article.

Geoff Childs receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Cheers! Welcome to the Nepalese village where everybody knows how to distill – https://theconversation.com/cheers-welcome-to-the-nepalese-village-where-everybody-knows-how-to-distill-271372

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Casey Pinto, Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences, Penn State

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacteria Treponema pallidum.

During pregnancy, this bacteria can pass from a mother with untreated syphilis, known as maternal syphilis, to her child in utero, causing the fetus to contract congenital syphilis.

In January 2026, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the rate of maternal syphilis rose by 28% from 2022 to 2024, from just over 280 to nearly 360 cases per 100,000 births.

I’m a public health researcher and infectious disease nurse practitioner. I study disparities in sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, and I’m currently conducting a study on syphilis in pregnancy.

A perfect storm of factors behind the rise

Two factors in particular have to be taken into consideration to understand the steep rise in cases.

One is the rise in syphilis cases in the general population – which naturally leads to an increase in maternal syphilis – and the other is the specific variables such as funding and access to care barriers that affect pregnant women when it comes to the spread of this disease.

The overall trend of increasing syphilis rates is the result of what I would describe as a perfect storm of factors, from lack of funding to COVID-19. The rate of syphilis infections in the U.S. has been steadily increasing since 2000.

In 2018, there was a sharp increase in this rate, as the group predominantly affected by this STI shifted from men who have sex with men to the general population of both men and women.

This shift caused an increase in rates of maternal syphilis, which has led to a 700% increase in congenital syphilis cases since 2015.

Public health funding for all sexually transmitted infections, excluding HIV, has been stagnant for decades, at about US$160 million annually. When accounting for inflation and rising costs, this has resulted in a 40% reduction in spending power today.

Unfortunately, each year Congress suggests cutting funding to both STI and healthcare access programs. These cuts have largely not been implemented in the final appropriations packages.

But each year, further steep cuts are proposed. The 2026 appropriations recommend combining three programs – HIV, STI and tuberculosis – and cutting $70 million from the combined programs.

On top of this funding shortfall, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated many of the underlying barriers to healthcare access that allowed the steadily increasing syphilis rates to increase faster. During the pandemic, safety-net clinic staffing and hours were reduced, which limited the availability of screening and treatment services.

Another factor driving the increase in syphilis cases has been a change in sexual behaviors over the past 25 years. During the early days of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s, sexual behaviors that led to HIV rapidly changed, leading to safer sex habits. However, by the early 2000s, improved HIV treatments meant that HIV was no longer a death sentence, but a manageable chronic condition.

While this was, of course, good news, it also meant that safer sexual behaviors began to decline, resulting in increased chances of exposure to HIV and other STIs, including syphilis.

The role of stigma

Social stigma and biases from both healthcare providers and patients themselves can affect whether someone gets tested or seeks treatment for symptoms.

While this affects all patients, it is particularly problematic for pregnant patients. Pregnant people are supposed to be screened for syphilis in the first and third trimesters. But a healthcare provider may assume it’s unnecessary to ask questions about a patient’s sexual behaviors or to order the necessary tests, especially in the case of longtime patients known to be in monogamous relationships.

Furthermore, the patient may hesitate to admit to risky sexual behaviors, or may not realize they have been exposed through a partner’s infidelity.

Barriers to care

Another driver of the increase in maternal syphilis is the difficulty in accessing prenatal care: 1 in 4 pregnant people do not have access to prenatal care in their first trimester.

Barriers to accessing healthcare vary based on race and ethnicity, availability of transportation, economic status, rural or urban location and insurance status. Most of these factors exist across all health conditions, but for pregnancy, insurance status offers a particular obstacle. Pregnancy is a qualifier for enrolling in Medicaid if income requirements are met. However, this enrollment can sometimes take months, and some prenatal care clinics will not see patients until coverage is approved.

This means patients are beyond the first trimester before their syphilis screening is done. But that first-trimester screening and intervention has the greatest potential to reduce the risk of congenital syphilis

Knowing the symptoms

Syphilis is characterized by different symptoms in each of the four stages of the disease. During the primary stage, within a few days to a few weeks of infection, most patients develop a painless ulcer at the site of exposure. This sore may go unnoticed and resolve on its own. However, the infection remains.

The secondary stage occurs 3 to 6 months after exposure. Patients commonly have flu-like symptoms, possibly some weight loss, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that covers the chest and back. This rash doesn’t itch, and it can spread to the palms of the hands or soles of the feet. Other symptoms include hair loss, mouth lesions, hearing loss and vision changes, but these symptoms may not all appear. This phase typically lasts a few weeks and then resolves with or without treatment.

The disease then enters the latent phase, when the bacteria can still be active in the body without causing acute symptoms and can last for decades.

Finally, 40% to 60% of patients with untreated syphilis will progress to a tertiary phase of the disease that can lead to any number of negative outcomes, including seizures, heart defects, bone growths, skin growths, confusion and dementia.

Transmission and treatments

The syphilis bacteria can spread easily through the placenta as part of the shared blood supply between mother and fetus. This is more likely to happen within the first year that a person is infected with syphilis, although the syphilis bacteria can spread to a fetus at any stage of infection, causing the unborn baby to develop what’s known as congenital syphilis.

Congenital syphilis can result in a range of negative outcomes, the most serious of which is miscarriage or stillbirth. If the fetus survives, long-term developmental delays, blindness, hearing loss, permanent teeth and bone malformation, heart defects and rashes can occur. Symptoms of congenital syphilis can happen immediately at birth, or they may not be recognized until the child is over 2 years old, when molars erupt, or as bones grow and the changes become more pronounced.

Congenital syphilis is treatable with antibiotics, which will stop progression of the disease but cannot reverse any negative outcomes that have already occurred.

Luckily, syphilis is easily treated with antibiotics such as a long-acting penicillin injection into a muscle. Unfortunately, the long-acting intramuscular injection is in short supply. But anyone who is not pregnant and does not have neurological symptoms – which require intravenous penicillin – can be cured with a course of another antibiotic, doxycycline, for 14-28 days.

Preventing maternal syphilis

The mainstay of prevention is to use a condom when sexually active, or to ensure sexual partners have tested negative for all sexually transmitted infections and are exclusively having sex with each other. In some cases, a person might take doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis, also called doxy PEP, within 72 hours of sexual activity to prevent syphilis, similar to the way Plan B can be taken to prevent pregnancy.

The most effective prevention method for congenital syphilis is universal screening of all pregnancies at three points: during the first trimester, the third trimester and at delivery.

However, some published studies and a paper currently under review show that only 80% to 90% of pregnancies with private healthcare insurance and [56% to 90% of those on Medicaid] are screened for syphilis at least one time during the entire pregnancy.

Casey Pinto has received funding from Hologic Inc. She has also received honorariums from Hologic and Roche in the past 24 months.

– ref. Syphilis cases in expectant mothers have dramatically risen since the pandemic – here’s what’s driving the trend – https://theconversation.com/syphilis-cases-in-expectant-mothers-have-dramatically-risen-since-the-pandemic-heres-whats-driving-the-trend-275646