Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Conor Harrison, Associate Professor of Economic Geography, University of South Carolina

As fall turns to winter and temperatures begin to drop, millions of people across the U.S. will struggle to pay their rising energy bills. The government shutdown is making matters even worse: Several states have pushed back the start of their winter energy assistance because their federally allocated funds have yet to show up.

A 2023 national survey found that nearly 1 in 4 Americans were unable to pay their full energy bill for at least one month, and nearly 1 in 4 reported that they kept their homes at unsafe temperatures to save money. By 2025, updated polling indicated nearly 3 in 4 Americans are worried about rising energy costs.

Conservative estimates suggest that utilities shut off power to over 3 million U.S. households each year because the residents cannot pay their bills.

This problem of high energy prices isn’t lost on the Trump administration.

On the first day of his second term in 2025, President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency by executive order, saying that “high energy prices … devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed incomes.”

Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright raised concerns about utility disconnections and outlined a mission to “shrink that number, with the target of zero.”

Yet, the administration’s 2026 budget proposal zeroed out funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, the federal program that administers funding to help low-income households pay their utility bills. While there appears to be continued bipartisan support for LIHEAP in Congress, on April 1, 2025, the administration laid off the entire staff of the LIHEAP office. These layoffs hinder the ability of the federal government to release LIHEAP funds, even when the government reopens.

Many people already struggle to cobble together enough help from various sources to pay their energy bills. As researchers who study energy insecurity, we believe gutting the federal office responsible for administering energy bill assistance will make it even harder for Americans to make ends meet.

The high stakes of energy affordability

We work with communities in South Carolina and Tennessee where many residents struggle to heat and cool their homes.

We see how high energy prices force people to make dangerous trade-offs. Low-income households often find themselves choosing whether to buy necessities, pay for child care or pay their utility bills.

One elderly person we spoke with for our research, Sarah, explained that she routinely forgoes buying medications in order to pay her utility bill.

Unfortunately, these stories are increasingly common, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.

Shrinking resources for assistance

LIHEAP, created in 1981, provides funding to states as block grants to help low-income families pay their utility bills. In fiscal year 2023, the program distributed US$6.1 billion in energy assistance, helping some 5.9 million households avoid losing power connections.

The program’s small staff played critical roles in disbursing this money, providing implementation guidelines, monitoring state-level fund management and tracking and evaluating program effectiveness.

It is unlikely that other sources of funding can fill in the gaps if states do not receive LIHEAP funds from the federal government. The program’s funding has never been high enough to meet the need. In 2020, LIHEAP provided assistance to just 16% of eligible households.
Our research has found that, in practice, many households rely on a range of local nonprofits, faith-based organizations and informal networks of family and friends to help them pay their bills and keep the heat on in winter.

For example, a research participant named Deborah reported that when faced with a utility shut-off, she “drove from church to church to church” in search of assistance. United Way in South Carolina received over 16,000 calls from people seeking help to pay their utility bills in 2023.

These charitable services are an important lifeline for many, especially in the communities we study in the South. However, research has shown that faith-based programs do not have the reach of public programs.

Without LIHEAP, the limited funds provided by nonprofits and the personal connections that people patch together will be stretched even thinner, especially as other charitable services, such as food banks, also face funding cuts.

What’s ahead

Although Congress has chosen to fund LIHEAP for 2026, the government shutdown threatens the program’s ability to reach families in time for the cold months ahead. While summer heat is on the rise, cold-related deaths have been trending up as well. Cold snaps in early 2024 and again in 2025 left several people dead from hypothermia. These are preventable deaths that continued LIHEAP assistance could help avoid.

These threats to LIHEAP—especially coming alongside uncertainty about federal food assistance—put the goal of energy affordability for all Americans – and Americans’ lives – in jeopardy. Until more affordable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, can be scaled up, an expansion of federal assistance programs is needed, not a contraction.

Increasing the reach and funding of LIHEAP is one option. Making home weatherization programs more effective is another.

Governments could also require utilities to forgive past-due bills, implement percent of income payment plans, and end utility shut-offs. About two dozen states currently have rules to prevent shut-offs during the worst summer heat.

For now, the cuts mean more pressure on nonprofits, faith-based organizations and informal networks. Looking ahead to another winter of freezing temperatures, we can only hope that delays to LIHEAP payments and cuts to LIHEAP staff don’t foreshadow a growing yet preventable death toll.

Etienne Toussaint, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, and Ann Eisenberg, a law professor at West Virginia University, contributed to this article.

This is an update to an article originally published May 13, 2025.

Conor Harrison receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Elena Louder received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation related to this research.

Nikki Luke receives funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She previously worked at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Shelley Welton receives funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

– ref. Trump was already cutting low-income energy assistance – the shutdown is making things worse as cold weather arrives – https://theconversation.com/trump-was-already-cutting-low-income-energy-assistance-the-shutdown-is-making-things-worse-as-cold-weather-arrives-269342

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andor J. Kiss, Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, Miami University

James Dewey Watson was an American molecular biologist most known for co-winning the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the structure of DNA and its significance in transferring information in living systems. The importance of this discovery cannot be overstated. It unlocked how genes work and gave birth to the fields of molecular biology and evolutionary phylogenetics. It has inspired and influenced my career as a scientist and as director of a bioinformatics and functional genomics research center.

Watson was also an outspoken and controversial figure who transformed the way science was communicated. He was the first high-profile Nobel laureate to give the general public a shockingly personal and unfiltered glimpse into the cutthroat and competitive world of scientific research. Watson died on Nov. 6, 2025 at age 97.

Watson’s pursuit of the gene

Watson attended the University of Chicago at age 15, initially intending to become an ornithologist. After reading Erwin Schrödinger’s book of collected public lectures on the chemistry and physics of how cells operate, “What is Life?,” he became interested in finding out what genes are made of – the biggest question in biology at the time.

Chromosomes – a mixture of protein and DNA – were known to be the molecules of heredity. But most scientists were convinced that proteins, with 20 different building blocks, were the likely candidate as opposed to DNA with only four building blocks. When the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment demonstrated that DNA was the carrier molecule of inheritance, the focus immediately shifted to understanding DNA.

Watson completed his doctorate in zoology at Indiana University in 1950, followed by a year in Copenhagen studying viruses. He met biophysicist Maurice Wilkins at a conference in 1951. During Wilkins’ talk on the molecular structure of DNA, Watson saw preliminary X-ray photographs of DNA. This prompted him to follow Wilkins to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge to pursue work into uncovering the structure of DNA. Here, Watson met physicist-turned-biologist Francis Crick and developed an immediate bond with him over their shared research interests.

Soon, Watson and Crick published their seminal findings on the structure of DNA in the journal Nature in 1953. Two other papers were also published in the same journal issue on the structure of DNA, one co-authored by Wilkins and the other co-authored by chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin.

Franklin took the X-ray photographs of DNA crystals that contained the data necessary for solving the structure of DNA. Her work, taken together with the work of the Cavendish Laboratory members, led to the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins.

The prize and the controversy

Although they were aware that Franklin’s essential X-ray photographs circulated in an internal Cavendish Laboratory summary report, neither Watson nor Crick acknowledged her contributions in their now famous 1953 Nature paper. In 1968, Watson published a book recounting the events surrounding the discovery of the DNA structure as he experienced them, wherein he minimizes Franklin’s contributions and refers to her in sexist language. In the book’s epilogue, he does acknowledge Franklin’s contributions but stops short of providing full credit for her role in the discovery.

Some historians have argued that part of the justification for not formally recognizing Franklin was that her work had not been published at the time and was “common knowledge” in the Cavendish Laboratory because researchers working on the DNA problem routinely shared data with one another. However, the co-opting of Franklin’s data and its incorporation in a formal publication without attribution or permission is now largely viewed as a well-known example of poor behavior both in science and in the treatment of female colleagues by their male counterparts in professional settings.

In the decades since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins, some have recast Rosalind Franklin as a feminist icon. Whether or not she would have endorsed this is uncertain, as it is unclear how she would have felt about being left out of a Nobel Prize and written about disparagingly in Watson’s account of events. What has become clear is that her contribution was critical and essential, and she is now widely regarded as an equal contributor to the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Future of science collaboration

How have attitudes and behaviors towards junior colleagues and collaborators changed in the years since Watson and Crick were recognized for the Nobel Prize?

In many cases, universities, research institutions, funding agencies and peer-reviewed journals have implemented formal policies to transparently identify and credit the work and contributions of all researchers involved in a project. While these policies don’t always work, the scientific environment has changed for the better to be more inclusive. This evolution may be due to recognizing that a single individual is rarely able to tackle and solve complex scientific problems by themselves. And when problems occur, there are more formal mechanisms for people to seek mitigation.

Frameworks for sorting disputes can be found in author guidelines from journals, professional associations and institutions. There is also a journal called Accountability in Research that is “devoted to the examination and critical analysis of practices and systems for promoting integrity in the conduct of research.” Guidance for scientists, institutions and grant-funding agencies on how to structure author attribution and accountability represents a significant advancement in fairness and ethical procedures and standards.

I’ve had both positive and negative experiences in my own career. These range from being included on papers when I was an undergraduate to being written out of grants to having my contributions left in while I was dropped from authorship without my knowledge. It is important to note that most of my negative experiences occurred early in my career, likely because senior collaborators felt they could get away with it.

It’s also likely that these negative experiences occur less often now that I am upfront and explicit with my expectations regarding co-authorship at the outset of a collaboration. I am prepared and can afford to turn down collaborations.

I suspect this mirrors experiences that others have had, and is very likely amplified for people from groups that are underrepresented in science. Unfortunately, poor behavior, including sexual harassment, is still happening in the field. Suffice it to say, science as a community still has a long way to go – as does society at large.

After co-discovering the structure of DNA, James Watson went on to study viruses at Harvard University and helm Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, reviving and substantially expanding its physical space, staff and worldwide reputation. When the Human Genome Project was in its infancy, Watson was an obvious choice to lead and drive it forward, later stepping aside after a protracted battle over whether the human genome and genes themselves could be patented – Watson was firmly against gene patents.

Despite all the immense good Watson did during his lifetime, his legacy is tarnished by his long history of racist and sexist public comments as well as his ongoing disparagement of Rosalind Franklin both personally and professionally. And it is regrettable that he and Crick chose not to acknowledge all those who contributed to their great discovery at the critical points.

Andor J. Kiss 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. James Watson exemplified the best and worst of science – from monumental discoveries to sexism and cutthroat competition – https://theconversation.com/james-watson-exemplified-the-best-and-worst-of-science-from-monumental-discoveries-to-sexism-and-cutthroat-competition-204614

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Laurie A. Garrow, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Major airports across the United States were subject to a 4% reduction in flights on Nov. 7, 2025, as the government shutdown began to affect travelers.

The move by the Federal Aviation Administration is intended to ease pressure on air traffic controllers, many of whom have been working for weeks without pay after the government shut down on Oct. 1. While nonessential employees were furloughed, workers deemed essential, such as air traffic controllers, have continued to do their jobs.

But what does that mean for the many Americans who take to the skies every day? To find out, The Conversation U.S. spoke with Laurie A. Garrow, a civil aviation expert at Georgia Tech.

What do we know about the FAA’s plans so far?

The first thing to note is that things can change fast. But as of this morning, 4% of flights are being canceled across 40 “high-volume” airports. The list is publicly available, but it includes most of the big hubs across the United States, such as Atlanta, New York’s airports, Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles International and Dallas/Fort Worth.

The plan is to ramp this up to 10% by Nov. 14 should the shutdown extend that long.

The FAA, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the airlines are working together on the details of which flights and routes are affected – and this will no doubt be monitored as the days go on.

But they are trying to make the cancellations in a way that cause the least disruption to customers.

So we are looking at cuts to domestic, not international, flights – flights across the Atlantic, Pacific and to Latin America are not, for now at least, subject to cuts.

The 4% of cancellations we are seeing are really targeting the high-frequency routes. This should help mitigate the impact. For example, typically American Airlines flies nine flights a day from Miami to Orlando, but they are planning to fly eight this weekend.

And carriers are looking at reducing regional flights. For example, my mom lives near Erie, Pennsylvania, where American Airlines flies three daily flights to their hub in Charlotte – I would expect that to go down to two, or one.

But the FAA was clear that it wasn’t going to cut flights to markets entirely, just reduce them.

What will this mean for existing flights?

For starters, you are going to see more passengers on them. It is fortunate that we are in the lull before Thanksgiving. This isn’t like the summer. There is more slack in the system – so there are extra seats available. If one flight gets canceled on a busy route, it will at this stage be fairly easy to accommodate on another flight.

And I expect customers will be asked to get to airports a little earlier than they would normally.

But people should expect more delays on existing flights. This is because of the way we maintain safety in the air transportation system. Air traffic control can only safely watch a certain number of flights. So when you have someone not at work, or a reduction in number of controllers, you will need to reduce the number of airplanes in the sky. You can’t ask a controller to watch, say, 20 flights when they usually watch 10. So what you do is put in more ground delay programs to limit the number of aircraft coming into or out of an airport. This causes delays but is necessary in peak periods.

What impact will this have on airlines?

At 4%, probably not too much of an impact. When you look at the list of airports affected, it is balanced from the point of view that many are large hubs and the pain is being shared across all U.S. carriers.

As for the impact on other types of businesses, at the moment it is mainly the industries that air transportation supports. According to the International Air Transport Association, the air transport sector in the U.S. – covering airlines, airports and tourism enabled by aviation –contributes about US$1.3 trillion, or about 4.7%, to GDP and supports about 7.6 million jobs. If these wider sectors are severely affected, it could create a longer-term impact on the economy.

And if this continues into the holiday season?

That is when it will get painful for the carriers. If we are looking at reduction of 10% going into the holiday season with additional delays, then that is when the real pain will be felt.

Will this affect how Americans choose to travel?

Air travel is what I call an emotional mode of transport – we use it for the events that are most significant in our life, such as big family meet-ups, holidays and major face-to-face business deals. So this may affect how people choose to travel going into the holiday season if it is more difficult to get people back to their families in time.

Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines, said on Nov. 7 that they are seeing an impact on bookings, with people postponing and rescheduling travel.

I certainly think for people looking at a 500- to 600-mile trip, the option of traveling by car is looking more appealing right now.

Will passengers be compensated for canceled flights?

Typically, compensation depends on whether the delay or cancellation was within the airline’s control. The U.S. Department of Transportation has created a dashboard showing “what services U.S. airlines provide to mitigate passenger inconveniences when the cause of a cancellation or delay was due to circumstances within the airline’s control.”

However, delays and cancellations caused by ATC staffing shortages are not considered to be within the airline’s control, and it is up to each airline to decide if and how they will compensate passengers.

As of Nov. 7, many airlines had announced they were allowing customers to change their flights or request a refund without penalty, including nonrefundable fares such as basic economy.

After all, it is in their interest, too, that people continue to fly.

Typically, major carriers offer more services for delayed and canceled flights within their control than low-cost carriers.

Is there any precedent for this? What happened then?

There is no real precedent for what we are seeing: a 4% to 10% reduction across the board due to a government shutdown. But we have seen major disruptions, such as after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and during the pandemic, when COVID-19 ran through flight attendants and pilots before the holidays – that caused flight cancellations and delays.

Historically, when we have seen something like this, we have seen consumer behavior change for a short period. After 9/11, when U.S. travelers had the hassle of increased security, there was a shift to more automobile travel for those 500- to 600-mile journeys.

What advice would you give would-be flyers now?

First off, download the app for the airport and airline carrier so you get up-to-date, reliable information. And if you can book for a day earlier than you normally would for a major event, do so – it provides a buffer in case your flight is delayed or canceled.

And try to avoid connections at all costs. The fewer legs, the fewer things can go wrong.

Also, don’t check bags if you can. There is nothing worse than getting to an airport, finding your flight is canceled, and then having to wait for your luggage to get returned.

Laurie A. Garrow is Past President of AGIFORS, a non-profit organization dedicated to using advanced analytics to improve airline planning and operations.

– ref. What to know as hundreds of flights are grounded across the US – an air travel expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-to-know-as-hundreds-of-flights-are-grounded-across-the-us-an-air-travel-expert-explains-269265

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Matthew W. Kreuter, Kahn Family Professor of Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis

Between January and mid-October 2025, calls to local 211 helplines from people seeking food pantries in their community held steady at nearly 1,000 calls per day.

But as the government shutdown entered its fourth week in late October, states began to warn residents that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, sometimes known as food stamps, would likely be affected. Nearly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits each month.

Over the next several days, calls to 211 from people seeking food pantries doubled to over 2,200 per day. Then on Oct. 26, the Trump administration announced that SNAP benefits would not be arriving as scheduled in November. The next day, food pantry calls skyrocketed to 3,324. The following day, calls reached 3,870. By Wednesday, it was 4,214.

We are public health scientists specializing in health communication and unmet social needs. We and our colleagues have been working closely with the 211 network of helplines across the U.S. for 18 years.

Excluding disasters, sudden surges of this magnitude in requests for food or any other need are rare at 211s, and can signal both public worry and need, as happened in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is 211?

Like 911 for emergencies, 211 is a national three-digit dialing code, launched in 2000, that connects callers to information specialists at the nearest local 211 helpline. Those specialists listen to callers’ needs and provide them with referrals to health and social service providers near them that may be able to help.

Every call to 211 is classified by the need of the caller, such as shelter, rent, utilities or food – each of which has its own code.

Callers are disproportionately women, most of whom have children or teens living in their homes. Most don’t make enough money to make ends meet. They call 211 seeking help paying rent or utility bills, getting food to feed their family, or securing household necessities like a winter coat for a child, or a mattress.

The hotline does not solve these problems for callers, but 211 information specialists use the most current local information available to refer callers to service agencies that are most likely to have resources to help.

The 211 network is the closest thing the U.S. has to a real-time surveillance system of the needs of low-income Americans.

There are roughly 200 state and local 211s in the U.S., and on an average day they will collectively field between 35,000 and 40,000 requests for help. Each request is coded using a taxonomy of over 10,000 need types, is time- and date-stamped, and is linked to the caller’s ZIP code. In addition to phone calls received by their helplines, 211s increasingly track requests they receive online, through their websites. The national network of 211s covers all 50 states and 99% of the U.S. population.

It’s encouraging to us that with each passing year of giving talks and lectures about 211, more and more audience members raise their hands when asked if they’ve ever heard of 211. But it’s far from 100%. If you are one of those with your hand down, here’s what you need to know.

Gaining local insights

Our team aims to deploy the latest methods from data science, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to detect trends in critical needs sooner and at a more localized level, increasing the speed and efficiency of getting needed help to local community members.

Our research has described the needs of callers who reach out to 211, community capacity to respond to callers’ needs, the ability of 211 to detect rapid changes in community needs, and the benefits of integrating health referrals into 211s.

When we saw food requests rising sharply in late October, we reached out to local leaders at 211 call centers to get insights into what they were hearing from callers.

Robin Pokojski, vice president of 211 and community partnerships at United Way of Greater St. Louis, reported that with all the uncertainty around SNAP benefits, callers were initially “anticipating” a need for food pantries. Tiffany Olson, who directs essential services at Crisis Connections and its 211 call center in Washington state, shared that even callers who rely heavily on their SNAP benefits sometimes need to use food banks as a supplement.

Those callers know that pivoting to rely solely on food banks probably won’t be enough to meet their food needs in full. They realize that food pantries and food banks will be more heavily burdened if SNAP benefits are unavailable.

Increasing the impact of 211 data

The trove of daily data on the needs of U.S. callers to 211 at the ZIP code level is unparalleled. Yet for years it was virtually invisible to anyone who didn’t work at a 211 hotline.

Even for people who work and volunteer within the 211 system, formal reporting on caller needs within a community was minimal, such as a one-page annual summary.

That changed in 2013.

Working with 211s across the country, our team created 211 Counts, a collection of user-friendly, public-facing data dashboards for local 211s across the U.S.

The dashboards allow users to explore the top needs in their community, see which neighborhoods are affected most and understand how needs are changing over time. The data can be sorted by legislative districts, school districts and counties to make the findings more relevant to different audiences.

Data on 211 requests are updated each night. Now in its 12th year, 211 Counts includes data on over 90 million requests from 211 callers in all or parts of 44 states. The local dashboards have been visited millions of times.

211 as an early-warning system

This is not the first time data collected through 211 hotlines has detected early signs of trouble for some Americans. Just weeks ago, we found that calls from people seeking assistance making car payments have been increasing steadily for five months, with daily calls peaking in October, at nearly twice the rate of May 2025.

Before that, 211s were months ahead of news reporting in seeing public distress associated with the 2022 baby formula shortage, the 2016 Flint water crisis and the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis.

When requests for major needs like food increase three- to fourfold overnight, every local 211 is likely to register this abrupt change.

But when less frequent needs, such as car payment assistance, creep up slowly, with an extra call here and there over several months, it’s unlikely that any local 211 hotline would notice.

That’s when the advantages of big data are greatest. By combining caller needs from 211s across the country, patterns emerge that would otherwise be missed. New data science tools are rapidly improving the speed and accuracy of detecting slight changes. When community and national leaders are made aware of potential rising threats, those threats can be tracked more closely and responses prepared.

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that each data point is a hungry child or a worried parent.

Hotlines and food banks and food pantries need support in this moment to feed people. But most local safety net systems struggle to meet their community’s needs all the time. Data that documents the magnitude of need won’t fix the scarcity of local assistance, but it can help guide communities in allocating limited resources.

Matthew W. Kreuter receives funding from NIH.

Rachel Garg receives funding from NIH and NSF. She has previously received research support from Health Communication Impact, LLC to produce 211 data reports for United Way Worldwide.

– ref. National 211 hotline calls for food assistance quadrupled in a matter of days, a magnitude typically seen during disasters – https://theconversation.com/national-211-hotline-calls-for-food-assistance-quadrupled-in-a-matter-of-days-a-magnitude-typically-seen-during-disasters-269057