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September 11, 2025

Russian drones over Poland is a serious escalation – here’s why the west’s response won’t worry Putin

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

On the morning of September 10, Nato jets were scrambled over eastern Poland to defend the airspace of an alliance member against an incursion by Russian drones. It was the first time that the west fired shots in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

This incursion marks a serious escalation by Moscow. But it also highlights yet again that the west has no clear red lines and is unprepared to respond decisively if red lines that were taken for granted in the past – like the territorial integrity of Nato members – are crossed.

This latest Russian escalation isn’t the usual war of words. It was only last week that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, warned that foreign troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for his invasion force.

He slightly qualified his comments by noting that this would be the case “especially now, while the fighting is ongoing”. But the message was nevertheless clear. Russia will oppose any international security guarantees that involve western troops in Ukraine. This has been a long-standing and frequently articulated position by Russia. Yet, Putin’s rhetoric threatening to target western troops clearly ups the ante.

But these are not the only ways in which the Kremlin has markedly turned up the pressure over the past few weeks and months. Russia has also retained some momentum in its military campaign in Ukraine and has been further empowered by several successes on the diplomatic front.

On the battlefield, Russia has continued to demonstrate significant advantages in manpower and military hardware.

Where the entire Nato alliance struggled to cope with the incursion of just 19 drones, Ukraine has been subject to an intense air campaign with hundreds of drones and often dozens of missiles every night for months.

The attacks have become more brazen – recently targeting Ukraine’s government building in Kyiv. They have also become more deadly, leading to increasing loss of civilian lives. As in past years, Russia has also targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which bodes ill for another grim winter for the country.

On the ground, Russian gains have been small and Ukraine has regained strategically important territory around the key city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Nonetheless, and this is what matters for Putin’s messaging, Russia is advancing, however incrementally and costly it might be.

ISW map showing the state of the conflict in Ukraine,September, 2025. — The state of the conflict in Ukraine, September 10 2025.
Institute for the Study of War

Putin’s aggressive moves

Diplomatically, Putin received an important boost from the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin and subsequent bilateral deals agreed with China. He will have been cheered by the cordial relations on display between Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders at the September 3 military parade to mark China’s victory over Japan in the second world war.

The Russian president can now be more assured than ever that his partners will have his back – economically in the case of China and India, and militarily in the case of North Korea.

Buoyed by such “successes” that his war machine will not suddenly grind to a halt, the Russian president felt confident enough to demand that Ukraine negotiate an end to the war with him or face the consequences of him ending the war by force.

Putin’s idea of a negotiated end to the war, however, is anything but that. What he has in mind is that Ukraine and its western allies should simply accept his longstanding demands: territorial losses, no Nato membership and no western forces to secure any peace deal.

This multi-layered Russian pressure campaign is not merely an accidental confluence of unrelated forces somehow magically lining up in Putin’s favour. It is part of a carefully crafted campaign for Russia to retain relevance in what will probably shape up as a future bipolar US and Chinese-dominated international order. If Putin has accepted Chinese dominance in Asia, he still sees opportunities for Russia to be the dominant power in Europe – and restore at least part of its Soviet-era zone of influence.

For that to be achieved, the Kremlin needs to demonstrate that Ukraine’s western partners are feckless in the face of Russian determination. So far, Putin is doing well. All of the deadlines and ultimatums set by the US president, Donald Trump, have been ignored by Russia – at zero cost.

Trump’s response to Russian drones in Polish airspace was a short post on his Truth Social network that indicated surprise more than an actual response to what could quickly develop into a serious crisis. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to offer his support for a bipartisan bill in the US senate to put more sanctions pressure on Russia.

Western response

Similarly, while European leaders have been quick and forceful in their condemnations of this latest Russian provocation, their reactions have, as usual, been at the rhetorical level.

Poland merely invoked Nato’s Article 4 procedure for formal consultations among allies in the North Atlantic Council. But the outcome of this consultation was little more than a meek statement by Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, that “a full assessment of the incident is ongoing” and that the alliance “will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defences continually at the ready”.

ISW map showing where the debris from Russia's drones was found in Poland. — Where the debris from Russia’s drones was found in Poland.
Institute for the Study of War

The statement by the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, offered solidarity with Poland and promised to “raise the cost for Moscow further by ramping up sanctions significantly on Russia and its enablers”. Given that the EU is on its 18th sanctions package and the war in Ukraine continues unabated, it’s hard to see a gamechanger here. Delivered the morning after the Russian drone incursions into Poland, the annual state of the union address by Ursula von der Leyen offered little more than confirmation of EU aspirations “to be able to take care of our own defence and security”.

None of this will have Putin worried. It should, however, worry Ukrainians and the rest of Europe.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Russian drones over Poland is a serious escalation – here’s why the west’s response won’t worry Putin – https://theconversation.com/russian-drones-over-poland-is-a-serious-escalation-heres-why-the-wests-response-wont-worry-putin-265001

September 11, 2025

Chalk and talk vs. active learning: what’s holding South African teachers back from using proven methods?

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lizélle Pretorius, Lecturer in Education, Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Learning experiences have to include opportunities to develop thinking, skills and values. PickPic

As a full-time teacher completing a PhD part-time, I made a decision early on: do research that speaks to the daily realities of teachers and teaching. And so, the idea came from a lived experience – the day I asked one of my grade 11 learners (an A student) about the interpretation of a poem. His response?

Ma’am, please just write the answer on the board so we can study it for the exam.

I am sure that many teachers can relate to that request, which is typical of education framed by a “chalk and talk” approach.

“Chalk and talk” refers to a classroom environment where the teacher does most of the talking. There’s an over-reliance on textbooks and a focus on recall and rote learning. This is your typical “one size fits all” approach to teaching. Learners are mostly motivated to learn to pass their final year exams.

In South Africa, where I work, that’s contrary to what the national curriculum states. The critical outcomes of the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement say learning has to be active, focus on critical thinking and reasoning, and go beyond memorising.

But that’s the exception rather than the rule in South African classrooms. There is a mismatch between policy and practice.

A US study weighed the pros and cons of active learning vs direct instruction. Ultimately, active learning is essential to promote curiosity, take ownership of one’s learning journey, and develop important social skills.

The goal of my research was simple: to help teachers include active learning activities in their regular classroom routines. I called my intervention the “altered flipped classroom”. The idea originates from the “flipped classroom”, an active learning approach to make the best use of face-to-face time with learners.

Altering the flipped classroom

The flipped classroom makes use of pre-recorded lessons that learners view before coming to class. In class, teachers support them to do their “homework”.

The flipped classroom has been researched in depth and the advantages to learning are impressive. These include improved learning performance and the development of skills such as critical analysis, problem-solving and collaboration. One study discovered that the flipped classroom helped low performers to keep up with their peers.

In South Africa, only 21.48% of public schools have access to the internet for teaching and learning. Because of this limitation, I had to “alter” the flipped classroom by excluding the technology component.

For example, instead of relying on online resources, learners can be given a visual representation of a poem along with a few guiding questions to prepare at home for the next day’s lesson. In class, they could then share their responses with a peer or the whole group.

This simple adjustment can enable meaningful contributions and include participation from all learners in a class.

Teachers take on the challenge

I invited Grade 8-11 teachers in public and private schools in the Western Cape province to participate. Thirty-one teachers attended the online training, and nine took part in the study. Their teaching experience ranged from first-year to over 30 years. They also received a teacher manual which included the background of the flipped classroom, its underlying theories, and practical examples of how to start. Teachers were asked to flip their classroom for three consecutive lessons and to keep a research diary to capture their experiences. These were also discussed during online interviews.

The aim was to explore what had been holding them back from active learning methods. It turned out that they experienced internal and external pressures. Teachers had to overcome possible judgement for “teaching differently” and faced uncertainty regarding the changing of roles. They also experienced fear of having less control, and noted their old habits and mindsets of teaching.

Voices from the classroom

The teachers in my study were concerned about what colleagues or management might think:

If someone walked into my class, it would have seemed like … the kids were playing around, not working, but they were. It just … looked different.

Teachers had to face their own deep-rooted habits and mindsets, which mostly centred on control. This appeared to come from their well-established teacher identities, shaped by their beliefs, assumptions and experiences with regard to their own teaching and how they were taught.

One teacher emphasised the need to move from “a conservative in a box kind of teacher”. One said “my classroom is my stage”; another “felt territorial about {her} space”.

Some teachers recognised the need for change. One said, “I feel like we can break that habit” and another, “We cannot do it the way we have always done it”. They started to become aware of old habits that influenced their practice:

It’s so like hammered into me that you have to be in the front, you have to teach.

From passive learning to purposeful growth

Ideally, teachers will challenge themselves to question the chalk and talk comfort zone and the system that reinforces it.

If nothing changes, learners are being set up to be dependent on their teachers.

The teachers reported many advantages for active learning, such as increased motivation and learners taking responsibility for their learning.

Teachers should be encouraged to go beyond the boundaries of traditional teaching. Learning experiences have to include opportunities to develop thinking, skills and values. Apart from knowledge, these are essential when entering the workforce or when studying a post-school qualification.

Change is not always easy, but it is necessary.

Lizélle Pretorius received funding from UNISA as part of a bursary when completing her PhD.

She is currently a member of ISATT (International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching) and the Junior coordinator of EARLI’s Special Interest Group 22 (Neuroscience and Education)

– ref. Chalk and talk vs. active learning: what’s holding South African teachers back from using proven methods? – https://theconversation.com/chalk-and-talk-vs-active-learning-whats-holding-south-african-teachers-back-from-using-proven-methods-263216

September 11, 2025

Nigerian photographer Michael Oyinbokure challenges stereotypes about migrants

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By George Emeka Agbo, Lecturer in the Arts of Africa, University of Edinburgh

As migration continues to dominate global news and shape political discourse, mainstream media often carry stereotypical images of immigrants, portraying them as displaced, desperate, criminal.

The photographic practice of UK-based Nigerian artist Michael Oyinbokure (also known as Mike Kure) shows how African artists construct counter-narratives. He uses photography to express insider perspectives on life in the diaspora (abroad).

His art photography presents what immigrants bring with them, their resilience, inventiveness, and enduring connection to their homelands.

I am a scholar and teacher who uses Oyinbokure’s work as a case study in my undergraduate African Photography course. My research uses the Nigerian case to explore photography as a means for understanding Africa’s colonial and postcolonial histories, including the socio-political forces driving migration.

Through a variety of techniques, Oyinbokure portrays immigrants as people who bear knowledge, cultural heritage and creative traditions. They constantly navigate questions of identity, belonging and survival as they move through different places and build a new life within their host communities.

His photographs offer complexity, dignity and humanity in a world that often seems to lack it.

Who is Michael Oyinbokure?

Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1997, Oyinbokure studied computer science at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta. He received a master’s degree in project management from Coventry University in London. But he was fascinated by the possibilities for display and archiving of photographs on internet platforms like Instagram. His own practice as a photographer would follow.

Oyinbokure has been influenced by the work of Seydou Keïta, a renowned Malian photographer, and by Rotimi Fani-Kayode, a Nigerian photographer who moved to the UK with his parents in 1966. This was shortly after Nigerian independence from British colonial rule and during the crisis that climaxed in the Nigeria-Biafra war.

Oyinbokure found in photography a language to convey the experiences of prejudice, displacement, and the crises of identity and belonging that he witnessed in Nigeria and in the UK. He moved there to study in 2022.

In the UK, Oyinbokure turned his camera to his fellow migrants. He showed them busy with economic activities or posing in studio settings. He sometimes enhanced these settings with touches of body painting and costume display. Through these images, he seeks to illuminate displacement and the everyday realities that define the lives of Black immigrants.

Masked realities

A good example of Oyinbokure’s approach to his photo-storytelling is the Masked Realities project in 2024. Here he worked with Lebanese-Nigerian painter Sinatra Zantout and with Nigerian immigrants in Peckham in the UK.

Oyinbokure’s photos show women going about their jobs. They are running traditional African clothing stalls, offering hairstyling services. Their work symbolises both economic mobility and cultural identity.

They tell a story of economic integration within the diaspora, of resilience, of women striving to survive and thrive in a new environment. But beyond documenting labour and survival, the photos encode elements of cultural heritage. The women’s activities and settings project the aesthetics of their African roots.

Some photographs from the series were translated into paintings by Zantout and exhibited alongside the full body of Oyinbokure’s work at the Play Room Gallery in London. A piece from the collaboration received the Dubel Prize. Another artwork from the partnership with a different Nigerian artist, Ken Nwadiogbu, was nominated for the Circa Prize.

Portraits

Besides photographing real-life situations, Oyinbokure also adopts a performative approach that involves careful curation of his subjects. This technique exploits the creative and expressive potential of pose. It incorporates visual elements like costumes, accessories and body painting in a studio set-up.

It recalls the African studio portrait photography of the early 1900s: the genre that brought Mali’s Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta into the limelight. With studio backdrops, props, accessories and co-produced poses, these photographers created images that came to signify the placement of Africans within the frame of modernity.

We see similar co-production in Oyinbokure’s Echoes of Pain, The Truce, Crowned in Silence, and In Bloom series.

Sidibé and Keïta’s photos allowed viewers to imagine liberation. Oyinbokure’s, on the other hand, curate the body through facial expressions, body paintings and gestures to speak of the emotional burdens of life in the diaspora.

In Bloom

For instance, he created the In Bloom series by working with a young Somalian woman living in London who was coping with the loss of her parents. Across the images, her facial expressions, body movements, and the blurs produced through multiple exposures evoke a profound sense of loss. This bereavement transcends the personal. It mirrors the broader sense of estrangement that often defines the African migrant experience.

Exhibiting and sharing the photos on Oyinbokure’s website and social media platforms broadens their audience.

The images have been featured in numerous exhibitions, within community spaces and on the international stage. They have been in art shows with names like Echoes of Pain, Boundaries and Borders, Echoes of the Past, and Boundless Horizons.

Pushing boundaries

Oyinbokure is a young artist who continues to push the conceptual boundaries of art photography. Increasingly he is using props and accessories like mats and travel boxes in his work. These carry Nigerian cultural symbolism and evoke movement and migration.

Many parts of the world are seeing harsh immigration policies and rising racial and xenophobic hostilities. These are often justified by migrants being portrayed as illegal, defiant, and as threats to security and economic stability. This perception is reinforced by images in the media.

Oyinbokure is driven by a desire to tell the stories that are not often told because they do not conform to dominant stereotypes. They are stories of Africans living their lives, carrying with them their cultures, helping to build communities – real people, not faceless numbers.

George Emeka Agbo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Nigerian photographer Michael Oyinbokure challenges stereotypes about migrants – https://theconversation.com/nigerian-photographer-michael-oyinbokure-challenges-stereotypes-about-migrants-264795

September 11, 2025

What is ableism? Words can hurt people but African culture offers an alternative

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sibonokuhle Ndlovu, Lecturer, University of Johannesburg

“You speak good English for a Black person.”

“Why are the plates not washed when there is a woman in this house?”

“Can I touch your hair?”

These are some common microaggressions you might have heard before, especially if you’re a Black woman.

Microaggressions can be projected to Black people because they are expected to speak perfect English when it’s not even their language. Or because what’s natural hair to them seems exotic to someone from another culture. They can be projected because of sexism that says women in African cultures belong in the kitchen.

What are microaggressions?

Microaggressions are comments or actions that reveal prejudice against marginalised people or a group of people who are oppressed. They might be micro (small or everyday) and they might manifest unconsciously or without harmful intentions. But even so, microaggressions are hurtful and devalue the people they’re projected on to.

What is ableism?

So then, what are ableist microaggressions? Ableism is a worldview in which ability and being able-bodied is favoured over disability.

Saying to a wheelchair user, “Ah, I see you are going for a stroll.” Or speaking slowly to them as if they can’t grasp what you’re saying. Or owning an office without wheelchair access. Those can be seen as ableist microaggressions. Using terms related to disability out of context is ableist: “You must be blind.” Even if said to a sighted person, it’s insensitive to people who might actually have impaired vision.

Ableist microaggressions are made by able-bodied people who don’t understand the realities of living with a disability. Sometimes they don’t mean to be harmful or they think they are helping by, for example, doing things for disabled people that the disabled person can actually do for themselves.

Even so, ableist microaggressions create a situation of unequal power dynamics because they make people with disabilities feel inferior, incapable or unintelligent.

Black women with a disability

As a scholar of inclusive education and disability in higher education, my research often focuses on disability and gender. I recently published a paper that reviewed studies of ableist microaggressions projected on to Black women with disabilities in southern Africa.

The paper explored how microaggressions affect these women in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eswatini. The three countries share similar cultural values, identity and beliefs when it comes to gender, race and disability. And how these three things intersect.

In these cultures, women are generally honoured and might be called “izimbokodo” (grinding stones). It might be socially accepted that “a home cannot be a home without a woman” and, in the case of South Africa, issues of human rights might have improved over the years. Yet ableist microaggressions projected on women remain common, and even more so Black and disabled women.

This has a negative effect on them particularly when it comes to making individual life choices, marriage and childbearing – as it does women without disabilities.

For example, in some parts of South Africa, when women who are disabled appear pregnant in public, many people assume they were raped. They don’t assume a woman with disability had sexual agency and she is shamed and treated as unusual. It makes it even harder for her to receive equal healthcare and social standing.

For Black African women with disabilities, the impact of ableist microaggressions is worse because they have an intersectional struggle – they experience several forms of discrimination. They face racism, sexism and ableism, often at the same time.

Why ubuntu matters

The question I ask in my study is what might help Black women with disabilities to be empowered to dismantle ableist microaggressions. The answer lies in the past. I argue that ubuntu is an important weapon against this form of discrimination.

Ubuntu is an African philosophy common to the region that is understood by different people in different ways. But it can best be explained through the isiZulu saying, “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (We are because of them). This means that a person is a person through other people.

In a worldview of care and cooperation like this, every human being in a community is valuable despite their gender, race or ability. Ubuntu helps people understand that they are dependent on each other. They need each other despite their differences.

In many precolonial African societies disability was positively conceived. Another isiZulu saying goes, “Akusilima sindlebende kwaso”. It means that disabled people are accepted and loved in their homes.

However, colonialism changed all that. Africans were reduced to being workers for European masters. Colonialism normalised able-bodied workers and regarded disabled bodies as inferior. This was further entrenched by colonial morality, which would shape social thinking in the region.

This mindset still plays out today in the modern African societies in these studies. Black women with disabilities are viewed as helpless, and so they are an easy target for ableist microaggression.

A system of thinking like ubuntu would give Black women with disabilities the opportunity for dignity and the agency to fight against the damaging effects of ableist microaggressions that they face in their daily lives.

Sibonokuhle Ndlovu receives funding from the University Research Council of the University of Johannesburg.

– ref. What is ableism? Words can hurt people but African culture offers an alternative – https://theconversation.com/what-is-ableism-words-can-hurt-people-but-african-culture-offers-an-alternative-263288

September 11, 2025

Who was Charlie Kirk? The activist who turned campus politics into national influence

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin, Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs, Boise State University

Charlie Kirk addresses the 2024 Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024. Al Drago/Getty Images

The fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025, has drawn widespread condemnation and renewed attention to the climate of political violence in the United States. To many, Kirk was not just another partisan commentator.

He was one of the most visible leaders of the young conservative movement. Kirk helped shape Republican politics on college campuses, in media and within President Donald Trump’s coalition.

To understand the significance of the attack — and why the reactions to it have been so strong — it helps to know who Kirk was, what the organization he built stood for, and the role he and his allies have played in national debates.

Two men shaking hands while sitting on a stage. — President Donald Trump shakes hands with conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a forum dubbed the Generation Next Summit at the White House on March 22, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Turning Point USA founder

Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist, author and media personality who rose to prominence unusually early.

Raised in the Chicago suburbs, he made national headlines at 18 for founding Turning Point USA, a conservative youth movement. Kirk only briefly attended college. Instead, he chose to devote himself full time to conservative organizing.

That decision became central to the mythos surrounding him: He represented a choice among promising young conservatives to skip higher education in protest of the alleged left-leaning bias of universities.

Over the next decade, Kirk grew into a national figure. Beginning in 2016, he frequently spoke at Trump rallies, which helped him to build an extensive media profile.

In 2020 he published the “The MAGA Doctrine,” a bestselling book that argued in favor of nationalism and Trump’s “America First Agenda.” And his eponymous podcast – “The Charlie Kirk Show” – was downloaded more than 120 million times over the past 10 months, according to Turning Point.

Kirk’s program featured political commentary and interviews with prominent Republican personalities and politicians – guests included Tucker Carlson, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. These conversations amplified Kirk’s reach well beyond student audiences.

Connecting college students and GOP

Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by Kirk and Bill Montgomery. Kirk met Montgomery, a retired businessman, after Kirk gave a speech at a conservative youth summit in Kansas. Montgomery urged him not to pursue college but to instead dedicate himself fully to building a youth conservative movement.

Kirk described the early days as lonely: driving to campuses, handing out flyers and trying to recruit students to talk about free markets and limited government.

Turning Point drew significant financial backing from high-profile conservative donors, including Foster Friess, the Wyoming financier; the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation; and Illinois businessman Richard Uihlein and his family foundation.

By 2024, Turning Point claimed chapters at more than 1,000 campuses, employed more than 400 staffers and had grown its annual budget to over US$8 million

Young women in a crowd holding signs, including one that says 'Joe Biden You're Fired!' — U.S. conservatives gather at The People’s Convention hosted by Turning Point USA in Detroit, Mich., on June 15, 2024.
Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images

Today, Turning Point is best known for hosting large-scale conferences. Its Student Action Summit in Florida regularly draws between 4,000 and 5,000 students and has featured appearances by GOP heavyweights including Donald Trump Jr. and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. A 2022 gathering in Phoenix, called AmericaFest, attracted more than 10,000 attendees.

Most controversially, the group’s Professor Watchlist webpage publishes the names of academics it accuses of bias against conservatives.

Turning Point has also spun off like-minded subsidiaries, including Turning Point Action and TPUSA Faith. These organizations expand Turning Point’s reach into electoral politics and church organizing. TPUSA’s media division produces a steady stream of popular videos, livestreams and podcasts, a legacy that should ensure Kirk’s influence lasts despite his death.

Expanding national role for Turning Point

Kirk and Turning Point provided important connections for younger conservatives and the Republican Party. In 2016, Turning Point mobilized thousands of students for Trump’s campaign, and Kirk was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention.

By 2020, the organization was playing a more overt political role. Turning Point Action ran voter-registration drives in battleground states, and the group sponsored buses and advertising to bring supporters to Washington, D.C., ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally. Kirk tweeted at the time that Turning Point would be sending “80+ buses full of patriots” to the event.

While he later deleted the message and distanced himself from the violence, it underscored the group’s entanglement in the most contested moments of the Trump era.

Kirk also acted as a crucial media surrogate for Trump. He used his podcast, social media, and speaking tours to amplify Trump’s message and attack critics. He was an early and persistent promoter of Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, helping translate them for younger conservative audiences.

Spreading misinformation, inflaming tensions

Critics argued that Kirk thrived on outrage and intimidation rather than debate.

The Professor Watchlist has been denounced by faculty associations as a blacklist that chills academic freedom. Journalistic investigations by outlets such as The New Yorker raised questions about Turning Point’s finances, including allegations of blurred lines between nonprofit educational work and partisan campaigning.

Kirk was criticized for spreading misinformation, such as false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and misleading statements about COVID-19 vaccines and mask mandates. He suggested that public health measures were a form of government control, rhetoric that public health experts argue undermined trust during a crisis.

More broadly, his sharp attacks on political opponents – he framed them not merely as wrong but as dangerous – drew accusations that he fueled polarization and inflamed tensions on American college campuses and beyond.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin 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. Who was Charlie Kirk? The activist who turned campus politics into national influence – https://theconversation.com/who-was-charlie-kirk-the-activist-who-turned-campus-politics-into-national-influence-265056

September 11, 2025

A federal program helps older people get jobs, but the Trump administration wants to get rid of it

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Cal J. Halvorsen, Associate Professor of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis

The program helps Americans over 55 find job training and short-term employment. Marc Romanelli/Tetra images via Getty Images

For the first time in U.S. history, there are more Americans over 62 than under 18. With the national workforce getting older every year, many economists argue that having people keep working longer than they used to would help maintain a robust labor market.

But it can be hard for many older adults to stay employed past the age of 62, the year they typically become eligible for early Social Security retirement benefits, even when their health is good. In part that’s because approximately half of full-time workers in their early 50s lose their jobs involuntarily by the time they turn 65, possibly due to age bias and discrimination. And because it is much harder for workers over 50 to get hired than their younger counterparts, many of those older Americans exit the labor force before they’re ready to retire when they unexpectedly become unemployed.

As gerontological social work researchers, we have conducted multiple studies on the career aspirations, workplace experiences and civic engagement of older adults.

We’re concerned about the fate of a federal program that helps low-income and unemployed adults age 55 and older get help with employment. The Trump administration has not released more than $300 million in funds – typically disbursed in May – to its grantees in 2025 from the Senior Community Service Employment Program.

And the Trump administration proposes that no money be spent on it at all in the 2026 fiscal year. The effects of this defunding are already rippling across the country, from Florida to Oregon.

Job training for older adults

This federal program has been running since 1965. It provides on-the-job training to people over the age of 55 who are unemployed and have incomes at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, which in 2025 means $19,563 for singles and $26,438 for couples.

The approximately 40,000 older workers who have benefited from it annually in recent years have earned their area’s prevailing minimum wage as a stipend while working part time. With some exceptions, workers can remain in the program for up to four years, but the average tenure was less than half that in 2022, around 22 months.

The program funds job training that takes place at nonprofits and government agencies, such as Goodwill Industries, Easterseals, local social services agencies, and the network of public and nonprofit agencies that serve older adults and their caregivers around the country, called Area Agencies on Aging.

The Department of Labor funds the program through direct grants to states, as well as grants to 20 national nonprofits, which in turn work with local organizations to recruit older adults and train them to do jobs like clerical, janitorial and customer service roles in all 50 states, Washington and U.S. territories. In most cases, at least 75% of federal funds must go directly to wages and benefits for participants, with the payments usually being made by the local and statewide organizations that recruit the participants and place them into host agencies.

The Senior Community Service Employment Program helps older Americans get a wide array of jobs.

Benefits for individuals and communities

This program helps older Americans balance their checkbooks, enjoy better health and engage more regularly with their own communities.

Many participants consider it a lifeline because it helps them to pay their bills and gives them a sense of purpose. For older adults who have trouble finding jobs, the program gets them out of their homes and back into their communities while boosting their self-esteem.

Once they’re trained, many of them find jobs – as many as 26%, according to the most recently posted estimates from the Department of Labor, and up to 38% in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the economy and labor markets.

For some participants, the government-supported employment becomes an avenue out of homelessness, a way to boost mental health or an activity that strengthens their relationships.

Through working for the government or nonprofits, participants in this program also learn about other ways they can get help, whether it’s accessing affordable health insurance or other job-training opportunities.

The program’s benefits outweigh its costs at the federal level, the Urban Institute has found. And the government and nonprofit agencies that host these older workers are better able to serve their local communities, partly because the program’s participants often share information about the services they learn about with their relatives and friends.

On the chopping block

In the summer of 2025, Senior Community Service Employment Program grant recipients across the country began to furlough their staff. Program participants have exited ahead of schedule, and prospective participants are missing out on job-training opportunities that would have otherwise been available to them.

The White House said it left the program out of its proposed 2026 budget due to what it said was a failure at moving older workers into unsubsidized employment.

We question this rationale because it ignores the constraints that federal regulations place onto the Senior Community Service Employment Program.

Its grantees are required to enroll unemployed and low-income older adults who have trouble getting jobs. Many can’t find work due to severe disabilities, limited literacy, trouble speaking English, homelessness, being 75 or older, having formerly been incarcerated and other challenges.

To require a program designed to help people who are inherently going to have the most trouble landing jobs – and then to criticize it because all of its participants do not successfully and quickly wind up employed – is a Catch-22. The mission and purpose of the program make that expectation unrealistic.

There’s another Catch-22.

On one hand, the Trump administration has mandated work requirements for health insurance coverage through Medicaid and introduced those requirements for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the first time for able-bodied adults who are 60 to 64 years old.

On the other hand, it is disrupting the only federal program specifically created to help older adults with low incomes find jobs and become better positioned to earn a living.

These policies effectively remove a ladder while insisting that older adults must climb it.

Improvement and innovation

To be sure, we do see some room for improvement in the program.

For starters, we think it needs new metrics of success beyond job placement rates. Remaining employed requires good health, so it’s worth tracking what happens to the physical and mental health of older adults who participate in this program.

We support the Labor Department’s efforts to find new ways to deliver this job-training program. AmeriCorps, the volunteering and community service arm of the federal government, is also testing a new workforce development program for older workers that we think is promising.

But for now, there are few alternatives to the Senior Community Service Employment Program. In our view, it’s well worth preserving it at a time when older workers face growing pressure to earn a paycheck.

Cal J. Halvorsen is an adviser to two research projects on programs to support older job seekers, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and AmeriCorps Seniors.

Ernest Gonzales received funding from Senior Service America Inc in 2015.

Nancy Morrow-Howell 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. A federal program helps older people get jobs, but the Trump administration wants to get rid of it – https://theconversation.com/a-federal-program-helps-older-people-get-jobs-but-the-trump-administration-wants-to-get-rid-of-it-262596

September 11, 2025

Federal subpoenas for transgender care records raise medical privacy concerns and put providers in a legal bind – a health law expert explains what’s at stake

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Margaret Riley, Professor of Law, Public Health Sciences, and Public Policy, University of Virginia

Under medical privacy regulations, health care providers can disclose health information in response to a subpoena, but they are not required to. designer491/iStock via Getty Images

On Sept. 10, 2025, a federal judge blocked the Department of Justice’s attempt to subpoena medical records and other private health information on minors receiving hormone therapy and other gender affirming care at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The move is the first public legal decision after the Department of Justice, in July, issued more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics treating transgender patients under age 19.

A subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, made public by The Washington Post on Aug. 20, demanded documents that are related to virtually any aspect of the care provided, including highly confidential documents like psychotherapy notes.

According to news reports, the Justice Department subpoenas have sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.

I’m a law professor at the University of Virginia specializing in health law. I spend a lot of time teaching future lawyers and medical professionals how medical privacy laws work. Normally, subpoenas demand information relating to specific crimes. But these subpoenas are unusual in how much information they seek, while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.

The subpoenas also push against the bounds of legal protections on health information.

What is HIPAA and why did Congress pass the legislation?

In the 1990s, growing use of the internet made it increasingly easier to violate people’s health care privacy. Some notorious breaches of privacy involving celebrities, such as USA Today’s revelation that tennis champion Arthur Ashe had AIDS, drove the point home. Genetic testing was also becoming prevalent in clinical care, raising concerns about the privacy of peoples’ genetic information.

In response, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, in 1996. The legislation required the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a set of privacy regulations specific to health care. These regulations went into force in 2003.

HIPAA prohibits health care providers and people working with them, such as administrative staff, laboratories, pharmacies and health insurers, as well as businesses, from disclosing patients’ health information without their permission. The regulations cover everything in a patient’s medical record as well as any documents or information kept by their health provider relating to their health care.

Most if not all of the information sought by Justice Department subpoenas is the type of information typically covered by HIPAA, meaning that it would generally be illegal for health care providers to disclose it.

DoJ subpoenas relating to transgender youth care push against the bounds of legal protections on health information.

Does HIPAA constrain providers’ response to subpoenas?

HIPAA’s privacy rule has a few exceptions, however – and responding to a subpoena is one of them.

The regulations permit but do not require health care providers to disclose protected health information in response to a subpoena. In other words, providers may choose not to comply with a subpoena. Notably, however, they may face consequences for doing so. For example, a court might find a provider in contempt if it does not disclose the requested information. That can leave health care providers in a difficult position, caught between their interests in protecting their patients and obligations demanded by courts or law enforcement.

If health care providers do choose to share HIPAA-protected health information in response to a subpoena, the regulations outline certain requirements that both providers and, in this case, the government, must follow. Providers must get written authorization from patients before disclosing some types of information, such as psychotherapy notes.

The government, meanwhile, must notify patients whose health information it seeks and provide them with enough information about the crimes or other legal violations that it is investigating so that they can decide whether they want to object to the subpoena. It must also give patients enough time to do so.

The government must also wait until after that time period ends before taking any action on providers’ compliance with the subpoenas. And it must certify to providers that it has followed these rules and that the court has resolved any objections patients may have filed.

Finally, HIPAA requires that when health care providers do disclose protected health information, they disclose the “minimum necessary” to accomplish the intended purpose of the subpoena or other legal request. In the context of a subpoena, that means the health care provider must ascertain the purpose, accuracy and legality of the subpoena before disclosing any information.

The subpoena to the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania provides very little information about the government’s allegations, so without more information, the health care providers would be unable to determine the minimum necessary here.

How might shield laws affect privacy protections?

HIPAA acts as a floor for privacy protections. In other words, states cannot pass laws that reduce those privacy protections. But they can introduce laws that offer more protection. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have so-called shield laws that offer protections both for those providing and those receiving gender-affirming care.

Shield laws are state laws that protect individuals from being required to reveal specific types of information. In the context of gender-affirming care, most of these laws are designed to limit the effect another state’s laws might have on care performed in the state with the shield law. For example, if someone travels from a state where gender-affirming care is banned and receives that care in another state where it is legal, a shield law may protect the people who received or provided the care against civil or criminal charges from the state where the care is banned.

A protest sign saying, We don't want your cis kids to be trans, we want your trans kids to survive — The DOJ subpoenas have sown fear and concern among providers and patients, even in states where providing gender-affirming care to minors is legal.
Nadav Spiegelman, CC BY-NC-SA

Some state shield laws may offer additional privacy protections. For example, Washington law on protected health services does not permit health care providers to respond to any requests for information from out of state that are related to investigations or proceedings relating to services lawfully provided in Washington.

It remains to be seen whether the federal courts will uphold these shield laws, and it is not clear whether they apply at all against a federal subpoena.

How will this play out?

Both the health care providers that have been subpoenaed and the individuals whose health information has been requested may raise objections to the subpoenas.

At this point, the Justice Department has not revealed the underlying claims it intends to pursue. Based on its press release, which mentions “health care fraud,” it seems likely that the government intends to pursue claims under the federal health care fraud statute and the False Claims Act for failing to meet federal requirements or for providing fraudulent billing or claims.

The government may decide to proceed under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, perhaps alleging that physicians somehow used a drug or device for a prohibited purpose. Given that the press release about the subpoenas refers to “mutilated children,” it is even possible that in some instances, the government might allege violations of a federal law against female genital mutilation. That law was passed to prohibit the removal of female genitals for nonmedical, usually cultural, reasons.

Before any of the subpoenaed health care providers or the people whose health information the government requested can determine how to respond to the subpoenas, they will need more information about the underlying claims. Their lawyers may move to dismiss or modify the subpoenas because they are so broad, arguing that they amount to a fishing expedition rather than a targeted investigation – as Boston Children’s Hospital has done.

These issues will undoubtedly continue to be decided in the courts, and their resolution may take some time. More broadly, however, medical privacy laws were passed to help patients feel comfortable seeking medical care – and the government’s intrusion on medical privacy is likely to make that harder.

Margaret Riley 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. Federal subpoenas for transgender care records raise medical privacy concerns and put providers in a legal bind – a health law expert explains what’s at stake – https://theconversation.com/federal-subpoenas-for-transgender-care-records-raise-medical-privacy-concerns-and-put-providers-in-a-legal-bind-a-health-law-expert-explains-whats-at-stake-264120

September 11, 2025

Social media nutrition misinformation fuels food-based attachments

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Pablo Arrona Cardoza, Ph.D. Candidate in Human Nutrition, McGill University

Whether you’re at a party, a family gathering or even at work, chances are you’ve heard someone say: “I’m on the (insert name) diet. It’s amazing!” Or maybe you’ve been the one to say it. Either way, it’s not surprising.

Diet trends are as old as, well, the grapefruit diet of the 1930s. But in today’s social media world, endless online wellness hacks, fad diets and nutrition misinformation are spreading faster than ever.

Why? Quick-fix regimens gain traction easily for many reasons. Our diets are deeply personal and, for some people, evoke a sense of devotion, almost like a religion.

The science of food choices

Food choices are complex. When we go to a supermarket, what we put in our basket is influenced by many factors.

Some are biological, like our brain’s tendency to prefer high-calorie foods. Others are cultural, like the staples we grew up eating. And some are basic business strategy, like the store we shop at nudging our choices by placing certain products at eye level.

Nutrition and public health scientists, however, largely agree that when it comes to eating behaviour, the food environment is key. The food environment refers to the complex systems that determine which types of food we have access to. It has a physical component, such as the grocery stores around our neighbourhood or workplace, but it also includes other important and highly effective factors like marketing.

In our 2023 meta-analysis, we found that exposure to food ads activated brain regions involved in eating behaviour. When people, regardless of age, were exposed to food ads, they ate more food afterwards.

This evidence, alongside a vast body of research, highlights just how strongly our environment influences what we eat, and how much. It also raises an important question: if traditional media and marketing can shape our eating behaviours, how much stronger is that influence today in our infodemic-driven digital reality?

The misinformation problem

Health misinformation on TikTok, Instagram and the like, is nothing new. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more time at home, the perfect recipe for the sharing of faulty claims emerged. And the nutrition space was no exception.

Countless personalities on social media spread nutrition “advice” that should be avoided. Two examples that have persisted on social media are the carnivore diet — based solely on eating animal products — and the anti–seed oil movement, which blames seed oils for many diet-related diseases. These controversial and thoroughly debunked recommendations have become so influential that they are even endorsed by the U.S. Secretary of Health.

A 2022 study reviewed more than 60 articles on online nutrition content, and about half concluded that the information quality was low.

Perhaps the more notable aspect, however, is the fervent and often combative way people react during these debates. Why do people display such passion — even tribalism — when discussing food and nutrition? What we eat and what we believe about our food runs deep. So deep, in fact, that it can become part of who we are.

Food and personal identity

Food is connected with identity in intricate ways. It acts as a socio-cultural force that shapes how we see ourselves. But certain traits that overlap with believing in conspiracy theories, such as relying too much on intuition and being antagonistic, can leave some particularly vulnerable to misinformation. They encounter nutrition-related misinformation online and become deeply entrenched in a specific diet and lifestyle.

Adopting a fad diet can also mean finding a community, or at least, a sense of belonging. It’s not just about following a guru figure proclaiming the diet’s benefits; it’s also about dozens of peers confirming those benefits, sharing tips and recounting their experiences. This creates an echo chamber that reinforces beliefs and shields them from external skepticism.

It doesn’t help that many claims about fad diets are framed in almost religious terms. In a 2015 Slate piece, Alan Levinovitz, professor of religion at James Madison University, wrote:

“Evil foods harm you, but they are sinfully delicious, guilty pleasures. Good foods, on the other hand, are real and clean. These are religious mantras, helpfully dividing up foods according to moralistic dichotomies. Of course, natural and processed, like real and clean, are not scientific terms, and neither is good nor evil. Yet it is precisely such categories, largely unquestioned, that determine most people’s supposedly scientific decisions about what and how to eat.”

Elevating claims about the healthfulness of certain diets to the level of the sacred is a striking phenomena. So much so that, for some, criticism of a diet can feel like criticism of the self. This identity-driven attachment is one reason why fad diets thrive on social media. They spread because they offer people something deeper: moral clarity and even purpose.

So the next time you see an influencer promoting their diet, ask yourself: are they sharing evidence-based advice in a composed and balanced way, or are they overly passionate, alarmist and entrenched in their views? If it’s the latter, you may have just spotted a misinformation red flag.

Pablo Arrona Cardoza receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec, Nature et technologies..

Daiva Nielsen receives funding support from the Canada Research Chairs program.

– ref. Social media nutrition misinformation fuels food-based attachments – https://theconversation.com/social-media-nutrition-misinformation-fuels-food-based-attachments-264073

September 11, 2025

A massive eruption 74,000 years ago affected the whole planet – archaeologists use volcanic glass to figure out how people survived

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jayde N. Hirniak, Ph.D. Candidate in Archaeology, Arizona State University

Collecting microscopic glass samples at Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains in South Africa. Katherine Elmes

If you were lucky 74,000 years ago, you would have survived the Toba supereruption, one of the largest catastrophic events that Earth has seen in the past 2.5 million years.

While the volcano is located in what’s now Indonesia, living organisms across the entire globe were potentially affected. As an archaeologist who specializes in studying volcanic eruptions of the past, I often think about how incredible it is that humans survived this extinction-level event that was over 10,000 times larger than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

Volume of material ejected during key explosive eruptions. For reference, 1 cubic kilometer (km3) is roughly equivalent to 0.24 cubic miles. The largest circle depicts the Toba supereruption, with the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption denoted by the smaller green circle.
USGS Volcanic Hazards Program, CC BY

The Toba supereruption ejected 672 cubic miles (2,800 km³) of volcanic ash into the stratosphere, producing an enormous crater roughly 1,000 football fields in length (62 x 18 miles, or 100 x 30 kilometers). An eruption this size would have produced black skies blocking most of the sunlight, potentially causing years of global cooling. Closer to the volcano, acid rain would have contaminated water supplies, and thick layers of ash would have buried animals and vegetation.

With all those odds stacked against Homo sapiens as a species, how did we survive to piece together the story today?

aerial view of an erupting volcano with billowing grey smoke and ash — What did a massive supereruption mean for people around the world?
DigitalGlobe/Maxar via Getty Images

Survival amid the ashes

Human populations living in close proximity to the Toba volcano were probably completely wiped out. Whether people on other parts of the globe were affected is a question that scientists are still investigating.

The Toba catastrophe hypothesis was one prominent school of thought for many years. It proposes that the Toba supereruption caused a global cooling event that lasted up to six years. Its effects, according to the hypothesis, caused human population sizes to plummet to fewer than 10,000 individual people living on Earth.

This scenario is supported by genetic evidence found in the genomes of people alive today. Our DNA suggests that modern humans spread into separate regions around 100,000 years ago and then shortly after that experienced what scientists call a genetic bottleneck: an event, such as a natural disaster or disease outbreak, that leads to a large decline in population sizes. These calamities drastically reduce the genetic diversity in a group.

Whether this apparent reduction in human population size resulted from the Toba supereruption or some other factor is heavily debated. As scientists collect more data from climate, environmental and archaeological records, we can begin to understand what conditions were most important for human survival.

How to study a supereruption’s impact

To piece together what happened 74,000 years ago, scientists have one direct line of evidence they can use: the rock and ash ejected from the volcanic eruption itself. This material is referred to as tephra. Scientists can trace the layers of tephra across the landscape both visually and chemically.

black and white image of a lighter grey blob with a few dark spots on it against a darker grey background — A backscatter image of a volcanic glass shard, taken with a microscope that uses electrons instead of light. The glass here is very small – 50-60 microns, about the diameter of a human hair – and looks light in color. It also appears to contain holes that formed from air bubbles during the time of eruption.
Jayde N. Hirniak

Microscopic volcanic glass called cryptotephra travels the farthest, making it important for understanding the true extent of an eruption. Because cryptotephra is not visible to the naked eye, it can be really challenging to identify. Researchers like me carefully separate out the tiny glass shards by sifting through the dirt and using a micromanipulator, a tool that can pick up and move microscopic grains. This process can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack and can take months to complete for one site.

Every volcanic eruption has a unique chemistry, which scientists can use to determine which eruption a particular sample of volcanic material originated from. For instance, tephra from one eruption might have more iron in it compared to tephra from another eruption. With this knowledge, we can begin to understand how large past eruptions were and who they directly affected.

When I work in the field, I look for cryptotephra that settled on archaeological sites – places with traces of past human activity such as tools, art or even buried remains. I collect samples from areas of the site that have been excavated and bring them back to the lab to extract the microscopic volcanic glass out of the dirt. Then I chemically analyze the glass to figure out the volcanic fingerprint.

first panel shows a woman standing on a ladder working on the dirt face of the wall in front, second panel is a close up of hands carefully picking at the dirt face — Author sampling for cryptotephra at an archaeological site. Samples are collected in a continuous column along an exposed stratigraphic section.
Jayde N. Hirniak

But even if I determine that a certain sample from an archaeological site is from the Toba supereruption, what does that reveal about whether people survived the blast?

Once we identify a tephra or cryptotephra layer, the next step is to look closely at what’s preserved in the archaeological record before and after that eruption. In some cases, people change their behavior after an eruption, such as using a new stone tool technology or eating something different. Sometimes, people even abandon a site, leaving no trace of human activity after a catastrophic event.

Studying volcanic deposits on archaeological sites fills in only one piece of the puzzle, though. Environmental and climate records preserve information on how the local vegetation or global temperatures changed at the time of the eruption. This information helps scientists understand why people made the changes they did.

What does the archaeological evidence reveal?

Given the size and intensity of the Toba supereruption, it almost seems inevitable that humans across the globe would have suffered immensely. However, most archaeological sites tell a story of resilience.

In places such as South Africa, humans not only survived this catastrophic event but thrived. At archaeological site Pinnacle Point 5-6, evidence of cryptotephra from Toba shows that humans occupied the site before, during and after the eruption. In fact, human activity increased and new technological innovations appeared shortly after, demonstrating humans’ adaptability.

This miraculous result was not restricted to South Africa. Similar evidence is also preserved at archaeological site Shinfa-Metema 1 in the lowlands of Ethiopia, where cryptotephra from Toba was present in layers that also preserve human activity.

Here, past humans adapted to changes in the local environment by following seasonal rivers and fishing in small, shallow waterholes present during long dry seasons. Around the time of the Toba supereruption, humans in this region also adopted bow-and-arrow technology. This behavioral flexibility allowed people to survive the intense arid conditions and other potential effects of the Toba supereruption.

Through the years, archaeologists have found similar results at many other sites in Indonesia, India and China. As the evidence accumulates, it appears that people were able to survive and continue to be productive after Toba blew its stack. This suggests that this eruption might not have been the main cause of the population bottleneck originally suggested in the Toba catastrophe hypothesis.

While Toba might not help scientists understand what caused ancient human populations to plummet to 10,000 individuals, it does help us understand how humans have adapted to catastrophic events in the past and what that means for our future.

What could a future disaster mean?

The good news is that we are a lot more prepared now than people were 74,000 years ago, and even then, they were able to adapt and find new solutions in the wake of devastating events. Today, programs such as the USGS Volcanic Hazards Program and the Global Volcanism Program focus on preparation by monitoring active volcanoes through a variety of techniques. In fact, you can check out what volcanoes are currently erupting at any time.

Cartoon showing various ways to monitor for volcanic activity including gas, remote sensing, ground vibrations and deformation — Different methods of volcanic monitoring conducted by the USGS Volcanic Hazards Program.
Lisa Faust, USGS, CC BY

Aside from our increased preparedness, humans are defined by our adaptability to almost any condition, even cataclysmic events. By studying the impact of volcanic eruptions in the archaeological record, we can better understand what conditions were key for human survival in the past and apply these lessons to the future.

Jayde N. Hirniak has received funding from the Hyde Family Foundation, Institute of Human Origins, Geological Society of America, Society for Archaeological Sciences, and the Cave Research Foundation for work related to this topic. This work also involves a collaboration between Arizona State University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

– ref. A massive eruption 74,000 years ago affected the whole planet – archaeologists use volcanic glass to figure out how people survived – https://theconversation.com/a-massive-eruption-74-000-years-ago-affected-the-whole-planet-archaeologists-use-volcanic-glass-to-figure-out-how-people-survived-254782

September 11, 2025

How ‘South Park’ could help Democrats win back the young voters the party lost to Trump

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Nick Marx, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University

‘South Park’ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker appear at Comic-Con 2025 in San Diego on July 24, 2025. Amy Sussman/Getty Images

The Season 27 premiere of “South Park” in July 2025 began like so many of the show’s episodes: Resident bigot Eric Cartman is pissed off. He directs his ire at the Trump administration, which had recently pulled federal funding for NPR, because he enjoyed hearing liberals “whine about stuff.” In other words, Cartman is irate that Trump has stolen his hateful, vindictive shtick.

As the episode goes on, other South Park residents join Cartman in rallying against Donald Trump. In the show’s infamously over-the-top style, the president is depicted as thin-skinned, deceitful – and, well, sexually ill-equipped. The episode ends with a surreal, graphic deepfake scene of a totally nude Donald Trump stumbling around a desert.

The White House immediately blasted “South Park” as irrelevant and “desperate for attention.”

The ratings tell a different story. The season premiere scored 6 million viewers across Comedy Central and Paramount+, with even more tuning in two weeks later for the follow-up. Each ensuing episode has further skewered Trump and his administration.

“South Park” has long targeted ineffectual authority figures with ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness, which is made possible by its weekly production schedule. Whereas most animated television shows require months of production lead time, series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone need just a week or two to write, voice and animate an entire episode.

While the ever-churning news cycle has made it more difficult to hold those in power accountable, the cartoon’s timely satire still galvanizes viewer attention. This makes it uniquely suited to channel rage toward Trump and other political leaders – and, perhaps, influence an audience that has recently proved elusive to Democrats.

A history of poking the powerful

The appeal of “South Park” doesn’t necessarily lie in partisan attacks on Republicans.

Its politics have always been all over the map, with both liberals and conservatives railing against the show at various points.

The 2006 episode “ManBearPig” ridiculed former Democratic Vice President Al Gore’s climate activism. In 2014, liberal critics decried an episode titled “Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina” for deploying transphobic tropes. And “The Pandemic Special,” which aired in 2020, mocked the restrictive vaccine policies promoted by progressives.

Meanwhile, conservative watchdog groups such as the Parents Television and Media Council have long targeted “South Park” for its allegedly harmful influence on children. The none-too-subtly titled 1999 movie “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” satirized these efforts: Throughout the movie, Kyle’s mom, Sheila, tries to censor the graphic children’s cartoon characters Terrance and Phillip.

That movie also marks one of the earliest appearances of the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein. It portrays him as a crazed, lecherous supervillain hellbent on taking over the world alongside his gay lover, Satan.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been a recurring character on ‘South Park.’

The current “South Park” season has animated Trump with the same cutout, stop-motion style as it did with Hussein, implying direct parallels between their dictatorial desires. Behind the scenes, Trump has reportedly been “seething” over the depiction.

In the 2006 two-part episode “Cartoon Wars,” Parker and Stone warred with Comedy Central over the right to show an animated depiction of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

The network rejected the idea after political violence followed in the wake of a Danish newspaper’s publication of a cartoon featuring Muhammad. Eventually, censored animations of Muhammad aired with disclaimers from Comedy Central, but only after Parker and Stone’s refusal to address the issue before broadcast.

The cartoon continues to relish poking its corporate benefactors. The current season premiered hours after Trump’s Federal Communications Commission approved a merger for the show’s parent company, Paramount. The administration delayed the transaction in order to settle its lawsuit against the Paramount-owned news show “60 Minutes,” which Trump had accused of favorably editing an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris while she was running as the Democratic nominee for president.

That same day also saw the announcement of a new US$1.5 billion deal keeping “South Park” at Paramount. Parker and Stone’s skewering of Trump sends a message to Paramount in the wake of the “60 Minutes” settlement and the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”: Let politics dictate your content at your own risk.

A person dressed up as a bunny stands behind an older man who's saluting while wearing a blue suit and red tie. — ‘South Park’ has sought to take President Trump down a notch.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Reaching the right voters

As the Democratic Party’s establishment struggles to appeal to young, internet-savvy, male voters – look no further than party strategists’ attempts to find “a liberal Joe Rogan” – “South Park” is garnering record viewership with young audiences.

The rest of the season, meanwhile, has provided a timely, steady drumbeat of Trump mockery.

The second episode of the current season calls out the Trump administration’s illegal ICE raids. The next episode lampoons Trump’s affinity for lavish gifts and compliments. In it, tech CEOs and world leaders obsequiously note that Trump “does not have a small penis.” The fourth episode depicts him as a negligent and emotionally abusive lover to Satan, further connecting him to the show’s previous portrayals of Saddam Hussein.

Satan is depicted as President Trump’s lover in Season 27 of ‘South Park.’

Despite its penchant for outrageous and, at times, scattershot satire, “South Park” has an important lesson to teach Trump’s political opponents.

The appeal of both Trump and “South Park” to many young men is not in the positive ideas they offer, but in the way they both humiliate their opponents. I research comedy on the right, and I’ve written about how right-wing humor has long thrived on “owning the libs.” Now, “South Park” is owning Trump, and with each new lurid reveal in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, it will have plenty of fodder as the season progresses.

Simply calling attention to Trump’s hypocrisies and corruption – long the forte of media figures such as Jon Stewart, John Oliver and the hosts of the podcast “Pod Save America” – becomes white noise after a while.

But actually animating the sitting president with a micropenis? Making a mockery of the self-serving business deals of the “dealmaker in chief” and his spineless corporate cronies?

Well, those things won’t win an election on their own. But they inadvertently could help Democrats lure back some of the young men who drifted to Trump in 2024.

Nick Marx 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. How ‘South Park’ could help Democrats win back the young voters the party lost to Trump – https://theconversation.com/how-south-park-could-help-democrats-win-back-the-young-voters-the-party-lost-to-trump-263488