Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Harold Wallace, Curator, Electricity Collections, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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If everyone in the world turned on the lights at the same time, what would happen? – Clara

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The biggest effect of everyone turning lights on at once would be a surge in demand for electricity, which most people worldwide use to operate their lights.

Electricity is a form of energy that is made using many different fuels. Power plants are electricity factories that generate electricity from sources including coal, natural gas, uranium, water, wind and sunlight. Then they feed it into a network of transmission and distribution wires called the power grid, which delivers the electricity to homes and businesses.

To keep the grid stable, electricity must be supplied on demand. When someone turns on a light, they draw power from the grid. A generator must immediately feed an equal amount of power into the grid. If the system gets out of balance, even for a few seconds, a blackout can happen.

System operators use sensors and sophisticated computers to track electricity demand so they can adjust power production up or down as needed. Total power demand, which is called load, varies a lot from hour to hour and season to season. To see why, think of how much electricity your home uses during the day compared with the middle of the night, or during a summer heat wave compared with a cool fall day.

Meeting a demand spike

If everyone turned on their lights all at once around the world, they would create a huge, sudden demand for electricity. Power plants would have to ramp up generation very quickly to avoid a system crash. But these plants respond to changing demand in different ways.

Coal and nuclear plants can provide lots of electricity at almost any time, but if they’re shut off for maintenance or they malfunction, they can take many hours to bring back online. They also respond slowly to load changes.

Power plants that burn natural gas can respond more quickly to changing load, so they typically are the tool of choice to cover periods when the most electricity is needed, such as hot, sunny summer afternoons.

Renewable electricity sources such as solar, wind and water power produce less pollution but are not as easily controlled. That’s because the wind doesn’t always blow at the same speed, nor is every day equally sunny in most places.

Grid managers use large batteries to smooth out power flow as demand rises and falls. But it’s not yet possible to store enough electricity in batteries to run an entire town or city. The batteries would be too expensive and would drain too quickly.

Some hydropower operators can pump water into lakes during periods of low demand, then release that water to generate electricity when demand is high by running it through machines called turbines.

Fortunately, if everyone turned on their lights at once, two things would work to prevent a total system crash. First, there is no single worldwide power grid. Most countries have their own grids, or multiple regional grids.

Neighboring grids, such as those in the United States and Canada, are typically connected so that countries can move electricity across their borders. But they can disconnect quickly, so even if the power went out in some areas, it’s unlikely that all the grids would crash at once.

Second, over the past 20 years, light bulbs called LEDs have replaced many older electric lights. LEDs operate differently from earlier light bulb designs and produce much more light from each unit of electricity, so they require much less power from the grid.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, using LED bulbs saves the average household about US$225 yearly. As of 2020, nearly half of all U.S. homes used LEDS for most or all of their lighting needs.

More glare, fewer stars

Beyond powering lights, it’s also important to think about where all that light would go. A big spike in lighting would dramatically increase sky glow − the hazy brightness that hangs over towns and cities at night.

Sky glow happens when light reflects off haze and dust particles in the air, creating a diffuse glow that washes out the night sky. Light is very difficult to control: For example, it can reflect off bright surfaces, such as car windows and concrete.

Lighting is often overused at night. Think of empty office buildings where lights burn around the clock, or street lights that shine upward instead of down on streets and sidewalks where illumination is needed.

Even well-designed lighting systems can add to the problem, making cities and highways visible from space and the stars invisible from the ground. This light pollution
can harm human health by interfering with our bodies’ natural sleep and waking cycles. It can also disorient insects, birds, sea turtles and other wildlife.

If people worldwide all turned on their lights at once, we’d see a modest increase in power consumption, but a lot more sky glow and no stars in the night sky. That’s not a very enticing view.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Harold Wallace is a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society.

– ref. If everyone in the world turned on the lights at the same time, what would happen? – https://theconversation.com/if-everyone-in-the-world-turned-on-the-lights-at-the-same-time-what-would-happen-256175

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sarah Diaz, Associate Professor of Recreation and Sport Management, Coastal Carolina University

The United States’ national parks have an inherent contradiction. The federal law that created the National Park Service says the agency – and the parks – must “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife … unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

That means both protecting fragile wild places and making sure people can visit them. Much of the public focus on the parks is about recreation and enjoyment, but the parks are extremely important places for research and conservation efforts.

These places contain a wide range of sensitive and striking environments: volcanoes, glaciers, sand dunes, marshlands, ocean ecosystems, forests and deserts. And these areas face a broad variety of conservation challenges, including the effects of climate change, the perils of popularity driving crowds to some places, and the Trump administration’s reductions to park service staff and funding.

As scholars of recreation who study the national parks and teach a course on them, we have seen the park service make parks far more than just recreational opportunities. They are living laboratories where researchers – park service personnel and others – study nature across wide-ranging ecosystems and apply what they learn to inform public and private conservation efforts around the country.

Returning wolves to Yellowstone

One of the best known outcomes of conservation research in park service history is still playing out in the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.

Gray wolves once roamed the forests and mountains, but government-sanctioned eradication efforts to protect livestock in the late 1800s and early 1900s hunted them to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the mid-20th century. In 1974, the federal government declared that gray wolves needed the protections of the Endangered Species Act.

Research in the park found that the ecosystem required wolves as apex predators to maintain a healthy balance in nature.

In the mid-1990s, an effort began to reintroduce gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park. The project brought 41 wolves from Canada to the park. The wolves reproduced and became the basis of a Yellowstone-based population that has numbered as many as 120 and in December 2024 was estimated at 108.

The return of wolves has not only drawn visitors hoping to see these beautiful and powerful predators, but their return has also triggered what scholars call a “trophic cascade,” in which the wolves decrease elk numbers, which in turn has allowed willow and aspen trees to survive to maturity and restore dense groves of vegetation across the park.

Increased vegetation in turn led to beaver population increases as well as ecosystem changes brought by their water management and engineering skills. Songbirds also came back, now that they could find shade and shelter in trees near water and food sources.

Black bear protection in the Great Smoky Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most biologically diverse park in the country, with over 19,000 species documented and another 80,000 to 100,000 species believed to be present. However, the forests of the Appalachian Mountains were nearly completely clear-cut in the late 1800s and early 20th century, during the early era of the logging industry in the region.

Because their habitat was destroyed, and because they were hunted, black bears were nearly eradicated. By 1934, when Great Smoky Mountains National Park was designated, there were only an estimated 100 bears left in the region. Under the park’s protection, the population rebounded to an estimated 1,900 bears in and around the park in 2025.

Much like the gray wolves in Yellowstone, bears are essential to the health of this ecosystem by preying on other animals, scavenging carcasses and dispersing seeds.

Water preservation in the Everglades

The Everglades are a vast subtropical ecosystem located in southern Florida. They provide drinking water and irrigation to millions of people across the state, help control storm flooding and are home to dozens of federally threatened and endangered species such as the Florida panther and American alligator.

When Everglades National Park was created in 1947, it was the first time a U.S. national park had been established to protect a natural resource for more than just its scenic value.

As agriculture and surrounding urban development continue to pollute this natural resource, park professionals and partner organizations have focused on improving habitat restoration, both for the wildlife and for humans’ water quality.

Inspiring future generations

To us, perhaps the most important work in the national parks involves young people. Research shows that visiting, exploring and understanding the parks and their ecosystems can foster deep connections with natural spaces and encourage younger generations to take up the mantle of stewardship of the parks and the environment as a whole.

With their help, the parks – and the landscapes, resources and beauty they protect– can be preserved for the benefit of nature and humans, in the parks and far beyond their boundaries.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. National parks are key conservation areas for wildlife and natural resources – https://theconversation.com/national-parks-are-key-conservation-areas-for-wildlife-and-natural-resources-261644

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Gail Richmond, Professor of Education, Michigan State University

Nearly 500 of Michigan’s 705 school districts reported teaching vacancies in the fall of 2023. That’s up from 262 districts at the beginning of the 2012 school year.

The number of vacancies is likely an undercount, because this number does not include substitutes or unqualified teachers who may have been hired to fill gaps.

Local news reports and job boards suggest that at least some Michigan districts are still struggling to fill open positions for the fall of 2025.

The teacher shortage is a nationwide problem, but it is especially acute in Michigan, where the number of teachers leaving teaching and the overall teacher shortage both exceed the national average. This shortage is particularly severe in urban and rural communities, which have the most underresourced schools, and in specialization areas such as science, mathematics and special education.

For more than two decades, my work at Michigan State University has centered on designing and leading effective teacher preparation programs. My research focuses on ways to attract people to teaching and keep them in the profession by helping them grow into effective classroom leaders.

Low pay and lack of support

Teacher shortages are the result of a combination of factors, especially low salaries, heavy workloads and a lack of ongoing professional support.

A report released last year, for example, found that Michigan teachers and teachers nationwide make about 20% less compared to those in other careers that also require a college education.

From my experience working with teachers and district leadership across the state, I know that beginning teachers – especially those in districts which have severe shortages – are often given the most challenging teaching loads. And in some districts, teachers have been forced to work without the benefit of any kind of planning time in their daily schedule.

The shortage was made much worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led many educators to leave the profession. Yet another culprit is the many teachers who, in Michigan as well as nationally, were hired during the 1960s and early ’70s, when school enrollments saw a massive increase, and who in the past decade have been retiring in large numbers.

Creating pathways to certification

One recent strategy to address the teacher shortage in Michigan has been to create nontraditional routes to teacher certification.

The idea is to prepare educators more quickly and inexpensively. A variety of agencies – from the Michigan Department of Education, state-level grants programs such as the Future Proud Michigan Educator program, as well as private foundations and businesses – have helped these programs along financially.

Even some school districts, including the Detroit Public Schools Community District, have adopted this strategy in order to certify teachers and fill vacant positions.

Other similar programs are the product of partnerships between Michigan’s intermediate school districts, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. One example is Grand Valley State University’s Western Michigan Teacher Collaborative, which targets interested students of college age. Another is MSU’s Community Teacher Initiative, designed to attract students into teaching while they are still in high school.

Perhaps even more visible are national programs such as Teachers of Tomorrow and Teach for America. Candidates in such programs often work as full-time teachers while completing teacher training coursework with minimal oversight or support.

‘Stuffing the pipeline’ is not the solution

But simply “stuffing the pipeline” with new recruits is not enough to solve the teacher-shortage problem in Michigan.

The loss of teachers is significantly higher among individuals in nontraditional training programs and for teachers of color. This starts while they are preparing to be certified and continues for several years after certification.

The primary reasons for the higher attrition rates include a lack of awareness of the complexity of schools and schooling, the lack of effective mentoring during the certification period, and the absence of instructional and other professional guidance in the early years of teaching.

How to repair the leaky faucet

So how can teachers be encouraged to stay in the profession?

Here are a few of the things scholars have learned to improve outcomes in traditional and nontraditional preparation programs:

Temper expectations. Teaching is a critically important career, but leading individuals to believe that they can repair the damage done by a complex set of socioeconomic issues – including multigenerational poverty and lack of access to healthy and affordable food, housing, drinking water and health care – puts beginning teachers on a short road to early burnout and departure.

Give student teachers strong mentors. Working in schools helps student teachers deepen their knowledge not only of teaching but also of how schools, families and communities work together. But these experiences are useful only if they are overseen and supported by an experienced and caring educator and supported by the organization’s leadership.

Recognize the limits of online learning. Online teacher preparation programs are convenient and have their place but don’t provide student teachers with real-world experience and opportunities for guided discussion about what they see, hear and feel when working with students.

Respect the process of “becoming.” Professional support should not end when a new teacher is officially certified. Teachers, like other professionals such as nurses, doctors and lawyers, need time to develop skills throughout their careers.

Providing this support sends a powerful message: that teachers are valued members of the community. Knowing that helps them stay in their jobs.

Gail Richmond 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. Fixing Michigan’s teacher shortage isn’t just about getting more recruits – https://theconversation.com/fixing-michigans-teacher-shortage-isnt-just-about-getting-more-recruits-252606

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Rebecca Dore, Director of Research of the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University

At U.S. President Donald Trump’s request, Congress voted in July 2025 to claw back US$1.1 billion it had previously approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That measure, which passed in the House and the Senate by very narrow margins, will cut off all federal tax dollars that would have otherwise flowed to PBS and its affiliated TV stations for the next two fiscal years.

The public media network has played a crucial role in producing educational TV programs, especially for children, for nearly 60 years. It has been getting 15% of its budget in recent years from the federal government. Many of its affiliate stations are far more reliant on Washington than that – leading to a flurry of announcements regarding planned program cuts.

“Sesame Street” is still in production, joined by newer TV shows like “Wild Kratts” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.” PBS KIDS, in addition to producing popular age-appropriate programs, has a website and multiple apps with games and activities that provide other opportunities for learning.

Local PBS affiliate stations offer educational programming and other resources for schools, families and communities.

I’m a child development researcher studying how kids engage with digital media and how educational programming and other kinds of content help them learn. I also have two children under 5, so I’m now immersed in children’s media both at work and at home.

What kids watch

In a study about the kinds of media kids consume that the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology published in June 2025, my colleagues and I surveyed the parents and other kinds of caregivers of 346 first graders. The study participants listed the TV shows, videos, apps and games the kids used the most.

Our research team then used a systematic coding process to look at how much children access educational programming in their favorite media – whether it’s through their favorite TV shows, web videos or video games.

We found that only 12% of this content could be described as educational. This amount varied widely: For some children, according to the adults we surveyed, educational media comprised their top three to five sources. Others listed no educational media consumption at all.

We also looked into who is taking advantage of educational media.

Our team found no differences in kids’ educational media use according to how many years of education their parents had. That finding suggests that kids of all backgrounds are equally likely to consume it.

The Role of PBS

This peer-reviewed study didn’t break down our results by specific media outlets. But in light of the cessation of federal funding, I wanted to find out how much of the educational content that children watch comes from PBS.

By revisiting our data with this objective in mind, I learned that PBS accounted for 45% of the educational TV or videos parents said their kids watched most often. This makes PBS the top source for children’s educational programming by far. Nickelodeon/Nick Jr. was in second place with 14%, and YouTube, at 9%, came in third.

PBS accounted for a smaller portion, just 6%, of all educational apps and games. I believe that could be because a few non-PBS apps, like Prodigy and i-Ready, which can be introduced in school, dominate this category.

An Uncertain future

Independent production companies collaborating on programming with PBS consult experts in child development and children’s media and conduct research throughout the production process to see how children respond and learn, often in partnership with PBS KIDS.

This rigorous production process can include observing children watching the show, conducting focus groups and surveying parents about their experiences. It requires a lot of time and money to produce this kind of thoughtfully crafted educational media. This process ensures that the programming is both fun for children and helps them learn.

What the end of federal funding will mean for PBS’ educational programming for kids is still unclear. But to me, it seems inevitable that my children – and everyone else’s kids – will have fewer research-informed and freely accessible options for years to come.

At the same time, there will likely be no shortage of flashy and shallow content marketed to kids that offers little of value for their learning.

Rebecca Dore has conducted previous consulting work for PBS KIDS and engages with a PBS KIDS staff member who is a member of the advisory board for one of Dore’s current federally funded grants.

– ref. PBS accounts for nearly half of first graders’ most frequently watched educational TV and video programs – https://theconversation.com/pbs-accounts-for-nearly-half-of-first-graders-most-frequently-watched-educational-tv-and-video-programs-261996

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Betsy Pudliner, Associate Professor of Hospitality and Technology Innovation, University of Wisconsin-Stout

The American South – and the nation more broadly – continues to wrestle with how to remember its most painful chapters. Tourism is one of the arenas where that struggle is most visible.

This tension came into sharp relief in May 2025, when the largest antebellum mansion in the region – the 19th-century estate at Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana – burned to the ground. While some historians, community members and tourism advocates mourned the loss of a landmark site, many activists and others critical of slavery’s past celebrated its destruction.

Soon after the fire, Nottoway’s owner indicated an interest in rebuilding. And within weeks, a new restaurant had opened on a different part of the site. That speed underscores how quickly memory, history and economics can collide – and how tourism sits at the center of that tension.

As a professor who studies tourism, I know that the impulse to monetize history isn’t new. Six months after the First Battle of Manassas in 1861, the site was already developing as a tourist attraction. People have been traveling to historic sites, buying souvenirs and leaving their mark on the landscape for centuries. That tradition continues, and evolves, today.

Wealth, slavery and the battle over memory

Nottoway is one of more than 300 such plantation sites across the country, which together generate billions of dollars in revenue each year. This type of tourism forces communities and visitors alike to ask a difficult question: What parts of the past do Americans preserve, and for whom?

Nottoway, completed in 1859, was built by 155 enslaved people. Blending Greek Revival and Italianate styles, it stood as a monument to wealth built on forced labor and racial exploitation. Over the decades, it passed through different owners, survived the Civil War and was eventually restored and converted into a resort and wedding venue. Critics have long argued that this commercial reinvention downplayed the lives and labor of enslaved people, neglecting the site’s foundations in brutality.

Beyond its symbolism, Nottoway has long been recognized as a cornerstone of Iberville Parish’s tourism economy. Research shows that sites like Nottoway can anchor regional economies by encouraging longer stays and local spending. These can stimulate nearby businesses through the multiplier effect.

Nottoway’s sociocultural significance was far more complex – as shown by the celebrations that followed the fire. For many, Nottoway was a site of trauma and erasure. With its white columns and manicured lawns, Nottoway was pervaded by a sense of romanticism that relied on selective memory. For example, as of June 2025, the Nottoway website’s “History” page made no mention of slavery.

In other words, the fire didn’t just destroy a building. It disrupted a layered ecosystem of economic livelihood, memory and contested meaning.

Tourism and the power of the past

To understand why people visit places like Nottoway, it helps to turn to the four main categories of travel motivation: physical, cultural, interpersonal and status. Plantation venues typically draw cultural tourists seeking heritage, history and architecture.

They also draw those engaged in what scholars call “dark tourism”: traveling to places associated with tragedy and death. While dark tourism may imply voyeurism, many such visits are deeply reflective. These travelers seek to confront hard truths and process collective memory. But if interpretation is selective – focusing on opulence while minimizing suffering – tourism then becomes a force of historical distortion.

Some tourists choose plantations for a sense of romance, others for education, and still others for reckoning. These motivations complicate how such places should be preserved, interpreted or transformed.

Over the past decade, innovative sites like the Whitney Plantation have gained national attention for centering the lives and stories of the enslaved, rather than the architecture or planter families. Opened to the public in 2014, Whitney reframed the traditional plantation tour by prioritizing historical truth over nostalgia – featuring first-person slave narratives, memorials and educational programming focused on slavery’s brutality.

This approach reflects a growing segment of travelers seeking deeper engagement with difficult histories. As Whitney draws visitors for its honesty and restorative framing, it raises a key question: Is the future of plantation tourism splitting into two tracks – one rooted in reflection, the other in romanticism?

Many Americans still picture the antebellum South through the lens of popular culture – a romanticized vision shaped by novels and films like “Gone with the Wind,” with its iconic Tara plantation. This “Tara effect” continues to influence how plantations are portrayed and remembered, often emphasizing beauty and grandeur while downplaying the brutality of slavery.

That’s why sites like the Donato House in Louisiana are important. Built and owned by Martin Donato, a formerly enslaved man who later became a landowner – and, complicating the narrative, also a slaveholder – this modest home offers a counterpoint to the opulence of estates like Nottoway.

Still in the hands of Donato’s descendants and slowly developing as a tourist site, the Donato House reflects the layered and often uncomfortable truths that challenge simple historical categories. Sites like this remind us that tourism plays a vital role in educating society about the complexity of our past. Heritage travel isn’t just about iconic landmarks; it’s about broadening our perspective, confronting historical bias and helping visitors to engage with the fuller, often uncomfortable, truths behind the stories we tell.

Controlling the narrative: Who tells the story?

What is chosen to be preserved – or let go of – shapes not only our memory of the past but our vision for the future.

When the last generation with firsthand experience of a historical moment is gone, their stories remain in fragments – photos, recordings such as those in the National Archives, or family lore. Some memories are factual, others softened or sharpened with time. That’s the nature of memory: It changes with us.

My late father, a high school history teacher, often reminded his students and his children to study the full spectrum of history: the good, the bad and the profoundly uncomfortable. He believed one must dive deep into its complexity to better understand human behavior and motivation.

He was right. Tourism has always echoed the layered realities of the human experience. Now, as Americans reckon with what was lost at Nottoway, we’re left with the question: “What story will be told – and who will get to tell it?”

Betsy Pudliner is affiliated with ICHRIE.

– ref. Plantation tourism, memory and the uneasy economics of heritage in the American South – https://theconversation.com/plantation-tourism-memory-and-the-uneasy-economics-of-heritage-in-the-american-south-258558

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Peter Boumgarden, Professor of Family Enterprise, Washington University in St. Louis

Imagine it’s April 2025 and you’re the owner of a small but fast-growing e-commerce business. Historically, you’ve sourced products from China, but the president just announced tariffs of 145% on these goods. Do you set up operations in Thailand – requiring new investment and a lot of work – or wait until there’s more clarity on trade? What if waiting too long means you miss your chance to pull it off?

This isn’t a hypothetical – it’s a real dilemma faced by a real business owner who spoke with one of us over coffee this past spring. And she’s not alone. As of 2023, of those U.S. companies that import goods, more than 97% of them were small businesses. For these companies, tariff uncertainty isn’t just frustrating – it’s paralyzing.

As a family business researcher and a former deputy administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and entrepreneur, we hear from a lot of small-business owners grappling with these challenges. And what they tell us is that tariff uncertainty is stressing their time, resources and attention.

The data backs up our anecdotal experience: More than 70% of small-business owners say constant shifts in trade policy create a “whiplash effect” that makes it difficult to plan, a recent national survey showed.

Unlike larger organizations with teams of analysts to inform their decision-making, small-business owners are often on their own. In an all-hands-on-deck operation, every hour spent focusing on trade policy news or filling out additional paperwork means precious time away from day-to-day, core operations. That means rapid trade policy shifts leave small businesses especially at a disadvantage.

Planning for stability in an uncertain landscape

Critics and supporters alike can agree: The Trump administration has taken an unpredictable approach to trade policy, promising and delaying new tariffs again and again. Consider its so-called “reciprocal” tariffs. Back in April, Trump pledged a baseline 10% tariff on imports from nearly everywhere, with extra hikes on many countries. Not long afterward, it hit pause on its plans for 90 days. That period just ended, and the administration followed up with a new executive order on July 31 naming different tariff rates for about 70 countries. The one constant has been change.

This approach has upended long-standing trade relationships in a matter of days or weeks. And regardless of the outcomes, the uncertainty itself is especially disruptive to small businesses. One recent survey of 4,000 small-business owners found that the biggest challenge of tariff policies is the sheer uncertainty they cause.

This isn’t just a problem for small-business owners themselves. These companies employ nearly half of working Americans and play an essential role in the U.S. economy. That may partly explain why Americans overwhelmingly support small businesses, viewing them as positive for society and a key path for achieving the American dream. If you’re skeptical, just look at the growing number of MBA graduates who are turning down offers at big companies to buy and run small businesses.

But this consensus doesn’t always translate into policies that help small businesses thrive. In fact, because small businesses often operate on thinner margins and have less capacity to absorb disruptions, any policy shift is likely to be more difficult for them to weather than it would be for a larger firm with deeper pockets. The ongoing tariff saga is just the most recent example.

Slow, steady policies help small-business owners

Given these realities, we recommend the final negotiated changes to trade policy be rolled out slowly. Although that wouldn’t prevent businesses from facing supply chain disruptions, it would at least give them time to consider alternate suppliers or prepare in other ways. From the perspective of a small-business owner, having that space to plan can make a real difference.

Similarly, if policymakers want to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S., tariffs alone can accomplish only so much. Small manufacturers need to hire people, and with unemployment at just over 4%, there’s already a shortage of workers qualified for increasingly high-skilled manufacturing roles.

Making reshoring a true long-term policy objective would require creating pathways for legal immigration and investing significantly in job training. And if the path toward reshoring is more about automation than labor, then preparing small-business owners for the changes ahead and helping them fund growth strategically will be crucial.

Small businesses would benefit from more government-backed funding and training. The Small Business Administration is uniquely positioned to support small firms as they adjust their supply chains and manufacturing – it could offer affordable financing for imports and exports, restructure existing loans that small businesses have had to take on, and offer technical support and education on new regulations and paperwork. Unfortunately, the SBA has slashed 43% of its workforce and closed offices in major cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans and Los Angeles. We think this is a step in the wrong direction.

Universities also have an important role to play in supporting small businesses. Research shows that teaching core management skills can improve key business outcomes, such as profitability and growth. We recommend business and trade schools increase their focus on small firms and the unique challenges they face. Whether through executive programs for small-business owners or student consulting projects, universities have a significant opportunity to lean into supporting Main Street entrepreneurs.

Thirty-five million small businesses are the engine of the U.S. economy. They are the job creators in cities and towns across this country. They are the heartbeat of American communities. As the nation undergoes rapid and profound policy shifts, we encourage leaders in government and academia to take action to ensure that Main Streets across America not only endure but thrive.

The authors would like to thank Gretchen Abraham and Matt Sonneborn for their support.

Dilawar Syed is a board member of Small Business Majority, a nonprofit organization.

Peter Boumgarden 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. For America’s 35M small businesses, tariff uncertainty hits especially hard – https://theconversation.com/for-americas-35m-small-businesses-tariff-uncertainty-hits-especially-hard-262306

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jill Lens, Professor of Law, University of Iowa

About 60 pregnancies per day in the U.S. end in stillbirth.

The best way to find out why a stillbirth occurred is a fetal autopsy – yet these procedures are performed in only 1 in 5 of the over 20,000 stillbirths that occur each year. As I explain in my recent book, “Stillbirth and the Law,” the fact that so few fetal autopsies are performed after stillbirths is actually a driver of the disproprotionately high number of stillbirths in the U.S.

One major exception to the rarity of fetal autopsies is when pregnancy loss ends with criminal arrest. Arrests after pregnancy loss are not new, but according to data compiled by the nonprofit group Pregnancy Justice, they have increased since the Supreme Court overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

As a legal scholar who studies pregnancy loss and its potential legal implications, I’m struck by this disparity: Autopsies are rare when the goal is general medical insight about the causes of stillbirth and pregnancy loss more generally, but they are seemingly routine when criminal consequences are possible.

Stillbirth and the inevitability myth

In the U.S., pregnancy loss before 20 weeks is called miscarriage, and pregnancy loss after 20 weeks is called stillbirth. Miscarriage is much more common, with some studies estimating it occurs in as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies. Stillbirth is rarer, but the incidence is still surprisingly high. Currently, about 1 in 170 births in the U.S. is a stillbirth, a rate higher than in many other high-income countries.

Moreover, that number masks a dramatic racial disparity. Black women in the U.S. face double the risk of stillbirth compared with white women.

Doctors – and, consequently, their patients – widely assume that pregnancy losses are inevitable. That’s relatively accurate for miscarriages, especially those before 12 weeks, which researchers believe are usually caused by chromosomal abnormalities. But it’s not accurate for stillbirths: Research shows that abnormalities account for fewer than 8% of stillbirths after 28 weeks.

In the U.S., at least 1 in 4 stillbirths are preventable – and that rate is closer to 50% for stillbirths at term, meaning after 37 weeks of pregnancy. Yet there’s been little movement toward prevention. According to a 2020 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranks 185th out of 195 countries in reductions to stillbirth rates from 2000-2019.

The U.S. outpaces other high-income countries in maternal mortality – rates that continue to rise dramatically – and in infant and child mortality. It’s also worth noting that the number of stillborn babies every year in the U.S. consistently exceeds the number of infant deaths from all causes.

The rarity of fetal autopsies

There is no one solution to reducing the U.S.’s stillbirth rate, but gathering data about its causes is a necessary step. A fetal autopsy is widely considered the gold standard for determining the cause of death after stillbirth. The autopsy procedure is extensive, with X-rays, external evaluations of the baby and examinations of internal organs and tissue sampling.

Not only are fetal autopsies extremely rare, but the data from fetal autopsies that do occur is likely not representative. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to get a fetal autopsy after stillbirth. Women with lesser income, however, have double the risk of stillbirth.

One barrier is cost. Many hospitals will not cover the costs of a fetal autopsy. Medicaid does not cover the exam either, and neither do many private insurance companies. Out-of-pocket costs range from $1,500 to $5,000. Stillbirth is surprisingly expensive, and many families understandably choose to use their funds to cover other costs.

The way that doctors bring up the subject of fetal autopsy can also influence whether parents decide on one. Research suggests that parents often do not receive compassionate counseling on this issue. Some parents reported feeling that providers actively discourage them from having one. Providers often lack knowledge about the benefits of fetal autopsy and of the process itself. Doctors’ reactions to stillbirth as a rare, freak event dissuades parents from exploring the cause of their child’s stillbirth and conveys that nothing would be gained from a fetal autopsy.

Finally, there simply aren’t enough qualified pathologists who have expertise in stillbirth evaluation in the U.S. Fetal autopsies are complex. Performing them requires synthesizing knowledge about birth defects, genetic syndromes, maternal effects, fetal development and more. Pathologists must evaluate the placenta and the umbilical cord and factor in maternal health. According to a 2019 report, only 268 out of more than 21,000 pathologists in the U.S. had specialized training in pediatric pathology. And even those pathologists are not guaranteed to have expertise in evaluating fetal or neonatal deaths.

Fetal autopsies’ misuse as criminal evidence

In my view, the rarity of fetal autopsies feeds a sort of vicious cycle. If the cause of a stillbirth is unknown, it opens the doors to suspicion that the pregnant person caused their pregnancy loss.

Overwhelmingly, the women who have been arrested after their pregnancy loss have been from marginalized communities, suggesting that bias also plays a strong role in these arrests. And in these cases, fetal autopsies are common. For instance, authorities conducted one on the fetus of Selena Chandler-Scott in April 2025, when she was arrested after having a miscarriage at 19 weeks. A pathologist concluded from the autopsy that Chandler-Scott did not cause the miscarriage.

More often though, autopsies in such cases are used to conclude that the pregnant person was at fault. There’s every reason, however, to question those conclusions. Fetal autopsies help identify underlying causes of pregnancy loss only when performed by pathologists specifically qualified to perform them. And in many high-profile criminal cases, it’s clear that pathologists lacked the required expertise to assess fetal deaths.

Consider, for example, Rennie Gibbs, who experienced a stillbirth in Mississippi when she was 16. Her baby girl was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, yet the de facto state medical examiner at the time – who was not a certified pathologist and therefore clearly lacked the needed specialization – concluded she had died due to Gibbs’ cocaine use. Chelsea Becker of California had at least three infections that increase the risk of stillbirth, yet the pathologist, who also lacked the needed specialization, concluded the baby died due to Becker’s methamphetamine use – and later admitted he had never even looked at her medical history.

But it’s hard to rebut these conclusions without building a foundation of research on why stillbirths are happening. Fetal autopsies performed by qualified pathologists to systematically assess the causes of death are a key component of that research – which, I believe, will both help prevent stillbirths and decrease the inclination to blame people who experience pregnancy loss.

Jill Lens is on the Board of Directors of PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy, a nonprofit group.

– ref. Fetal autopsies could help prevent stillbirths, but too often they are used to blame mothers for pregnancy loss – https://theconversation.com/fetal-autopsies-could-help-prevent-stillbirths-but-too-often-they-are-used-to-blame-mothers-for-pregnancy-loss-253898