Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ismar Volić, Professor of Mathematics, Director of Institute for Mathematics and Democracy, Wellesley College

American democracy is straining under countless pressures, many of them rooted in structural problems that go back to the nation’s founding. Chief among them is the “pick one” plurality voting system – also called winner-take-all – used to elect nearly all of the 520,000 government officials in the United States.

In this system, voters select one candidate, and the candidate who receives the highest number of votes wins.

Plurality voting is notorious for producing winners without majority support in races that have more than two candidates. It can also create spoilers, or losing candidates whose presence in a race alters the outcome, as Ralph Nader’s did in the 2000 presidential election. And it can result in vote-splitting, where similar candidates divide support, paving the way for a less popular winner. This happened in the 2016 Republican primaries when Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich split the anti-Donald Trump vote.

Plurality can also encourage dishonest voting. That happens when voters are pressured to abandon their favorite candidate for one they like less but think can win. In the 2024 elections, for example, voters whose preference for president was Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, might have instead cast their vote for Democrat Kamala Harris.

An increasingly well-known alternative to plurality voting is ranked choice voting. It’s used statewide in Maine and Alaska and in dozens of municipalities, including New York City.

Better performance

Whereas plurality voting allows voters to select only one candidate, ranked choice lets them rank candidates. If a candidate secures a majority of first-place rankings, they are the winner just like they would be under plurality.

But the two systems diverge when there is no majority winner. Plurality simply chooses the candidates with the most first-place votes, while ranked choice voting eliminates the person with the fewest first-place votes and transfers their votes to the next candidate on each ballot. The process is repeated until there is a majority winner.

Ranked choice voting makes use of more information from the voters than plurality, but does it avoid some of the problems plurality suffers from?

We are a team of mathematicians who recently concluded a study aimed at answering this and related questions. We analyzed some 2,000 ranked choice elections from the U.S., Australia and Scotland. We supplemented those real-world results with 60 million simulated elections.

The results were clear: Ranked choice voting performed much better across all the measures we tested, including spoiler, vote-splitting, strength of candidates and strategic voting.

Empowering voters

Plurality voting produced a spoiler up to 15 times more often than ranked choice voting. And it was 50% more likely to elect an extreme candidate. Plurality, furthermore, was highly susceptible to vote-splitting, while ranked choice voting was nearly impervious to it.

Ranked choice voting picked strong candidates up to 18 times more frequently than plurality voting, where by “strong” we mean candidates who received many first-place votes and also had broad support, even among their noncore supporters. This method also rarely elects a weak or fringe candidate and typically elects a candidate near the electorate’s ideological center.

Ranked choice voting is also more resistant to various forms of strategic behavior such as bullet voting, where voters choose only one candidate despite the ability to rank more, and burying, where voters disingenuously rank an alternative candidate lower in the hopes of defeating them.

Our research also studied the ways in which election systems can influence behavior. In a plurality election, voters are afraid that their ballot could be “wasted” on a candidate who doesn’t have a shot at winning, or that they might contribute to a spoiler. Our study shows that ranked choice voting largely avoids these pitfalls, empowering voters to express their true preferences rather than being strategic.

We found that candidates in ranked choice voting elections do best when they adopt the policies the greatest number of people support, meeting the voters where they are.

In Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election, for example, Democrat Mary Peltola positioned herself firmly within Alaska’s center-left base – while still embracing some positions considered conservative outside of Alaska. She won by garnering enough second-place votes from supporters of Republican Nick Begich.

And in the New York mayoral primary in June 2025, Zohran Mamdani won by creating a coalition with another progressive candidate, Brad Lander, and occupying a progressive space representing a range of voters.

The Alaska and New York examples highlight some differences with plurality voting, which often favors appealing to a narrow base without the necessity of reaching out beyond it.

Mending a broken system

A mathematically interesting feature of Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election is that Begich beat both Peltola and Republican Sarah Palin in head-to-head contests – meaning that more people ranked Begich above Peltola than the other way around – but lost the ranked choice voting election to Peltola.

Critics seize on such cases as reasons to avoid ranked choice voting. But our work shows that these are statistical outliers, occurring fewer than 1% of the time.

Overall, our research shows that ranked choice voting elects candidates with broader support and greater democratic legitimacy than plurality. It therefore seems sensible that voting reform advocates continue to pursue this method as an alternative to plurality voting.

At a time when Americans are losing faith in democracy, voters cannot afford systems that hand victory to unrepresentative candidates and force them to play tactical games. The math is in, and the evidence is overwhelming: Plurality voting is broken. Ranked choice voting will not solve every democratic ailment, but it is a good step toward mending them.

Ismar Volić receives funding from Schwab Charitable.

Andy Schultz receives funding from Schwab Charitable. He is a registered Democrat.

David McCune receives funding from Schwab Charitable.

– ref. Ranked choice voting outperforms the winner-take-all system used to elect nearly every US politician – https://theconversation.com/ranked-choice-voting-outperforms-the-winner-take-all-system-used-to-elect-nearly-every-us-politician-267515

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Vitaliy Skorodziyevskiy, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, University of Louisville

When you hear the phrase “family business,” you might think of the backstabbing Roys of “Succession” or the dysfunctional Duttons of “Yellowstone.” But while TV’s family companies are entertaining, their real-life counterparts may be even more compelling.

Around the world, family businesses produce about two-thirds of all economic output and employ more than half of all workers. And they can be very profitable: The world’s 500 largest family businesses generated a collective US$8.8 trillion in 2024. That’s nearly twice the gross domestic product of Germany.

If you’re not steeped in family business research – and even if you are – their ubiquity might seem a little strange. After all, families can come with drama, conflict and long memories. That might not sound like the formula for an efficient company.

We are researchers who study family businesses, and we wanted to understand why there are so many of them in the first place. In our recent article published in the Journal of Management, we set out to understand this different kind of “why” – not just the purpose of family firms, but why they thrive around the world.

The usual answers don’t really explain it

The standard answer to “Why do family companies exist?” is straightforward: They allow owners to generate income and potentially create a legacy for future generations.

A related question is: “Why do entrepreneurs even want to involve their relatives in their new ventures?” Research suggests entrepreneurs do so because family members care and can help when resources are limited.

But that might not be unique to family businesses. All companies – whether run by a family or corporate executives – balance short-term profit and long-term goals. And all of them want reliable workers who are willing to pitch in.

So those answers don’t explain why family companies, specifically, are so common worldwide.

A different angle: Winning without fighting

For our study, we considered decades of research about family firms to conclude that family businesses are uniquely skilled at keeping competitors out of their market space – often without actually competing with them.

How? We think a quote from Sun-Tzu’s “The Art of War” captures the idea:

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

Family-owned businesses often do exactly this, which is why there are so many of them. Here’s how it works in practice:

Three key differences

Research on family businesses has shown that they differ from other types of companies in three key ways: the types of goals they pursue, the governance structures they establish, and the resources they have. Together, these three characteristics explain how family businesses may use their property rights to get an edge over their competitors.

The first is goals. Unlike other types of enterprises, family businesses prioritize noneconomic goals involving the reputation, legacy and well-being of the family – both now and in the future.

Of course, they still have to worry about making a profit. But their interest in family-centered goals can lead them to choose projects that may yield lower returns but still fulfill their noneconomic goals. These sorts of projects may not be attractive to other types of firms. As a result, family businesses may find themselves operating in spaces where there’s not much competition to start with.

For instance, take Corticeira Amorim, a family-run Portuguese company that dominates the global market for cork stoppers and other cork products. The cork industry is a classic narrow niche: There are only a handful of serious global competitors, and Amorim is widely described as the world’s largest cork processing group, with a sizable share of global wine and Champagne corks.

The second key factor is governance. Family members who work together often know each other well, care about each other and want the best for both the family and the firm, which may stay in the family’s possession for generations. This fact may reduce operating costs and the cost of contracting.

Why? When they make decisions, they don’t always need to hire a fancy, Harvey Specter-like lawyer from the show “Suits.” They can decide on the next move for the company while having dinner together. This significantly reduces the costs associated with decision-making. In other words, because they rely less on formal contracts and monitoring, family businesses can operate more cheaply.

Finally, family firms use resources like information and money differently. Since many established family businesses have been around for decades, relatives who work together accumulate information that’s hard to acquire and transfer, and might not even be useful elsewhere. Being a family member means not only doing business with relatives but also going through life together acquiring a unique perspective about the family itself.

As a result, family businesses have lower transaction costs than other companies. Sometimes this shows up in very concrete ways. An uncle may invest money in the business and never ask for it back. Would that happen at a nonfamily business? Probably not. This dedication makes family members a special type of human asset that’s hard to replace.

Put simply, nonfamily businesses are unlikely to hire someone who cares as much about the company’s success as a deeply invested relative does. And because these relationships aren’t for sale on the open market, competitors can’t easily access them. That fact helps family businesses keep competitors at bay while essentially being themselves – which in turn explains why there are so many of them.

Family businesses are so common worldwide that there are several holidays celebrating them, including International Family Business Day on Nov. 25, U.S. National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day on March 29 and the United Nations’ Micro-, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Day on June 27. This holiday season, you might consider spreading a little extra cheer with the family-run retailers in your community.

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

– ref. Why do family companies even exist? They know how to ‘win without fighting’ – https://theconversation.com/why-do-family-companies-even-exist-they-know-how-to-win-without-fighting-266329

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ramesh Agarwal, Professor of Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis

As AI data centers spring up across the country, their energy demand and resulting greenhouse gas emissions are raising concerns. With servers and energy-intensive cooling systems constantly running, these buildings can use anywhere from a few megawatts of power for a small data center to more than 100 megawatts for a hyperscale data center. To put that in perspective, the average large natural gas power plant built in the U.S. generates less than 1,000 megawatts.

When the power for these data centers comes from fossil fuels, they can become major sources of climate-warming emissions in the atmosphere – unless the power plants capture their greenhouse gases first and then lock them away.

Google recently entered into a unique corporate power purchase agreement to support the construction of a natural gas power plant in Illinois designed to do exactly that through carbon capture and storage.

So how does carbon capture and storage, or CCS, work for a project like this?

I am an engineer who wrote a 2024 book about various types of carbon storage. Here’s the short version of what you need to know.

How CCS works

When fossil fuels are burned to generate electricity, they release carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for centuries. As these gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they act like a blanket, holding heat close to the Earth’s surface. Too high of a concentration heats up the Earth too much, setting off climate changes, including worsening heat waves, rising sea levels and intensifying storms.

Carbon capture and storage involves capturing carbon dioxide from power plants, industrial processes or even directly from the air and then transporting it, often through pipelines, to sites where it can be safely injected underground for permanent storage.

The carbon dioxide might be transported as a supercritical gas – which is right at the phase change from liquid to gas and has the properties of both – or dissolved in a liquid. Once injected deep underground, the carbon dioxide can become permanently trapped in the geologic structure, dissolve in brine or become mineralized, turning it to rock.

The goal of carbon storage is to ensure that carbon dioxide can be kept out of the atmosphere for a long time.

Types of underground carbon storage

There are several options for storing carbon dioxide underground.

Depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs have plentiful storage space and the added benefit that most are already mapped and their limits understood. They already held hydrocarbons in place for millions of years.

Carbon dioxide can also be injected into working oil or gas reservoirs to push out more of those fossil fuels while leaving most of the carbon dioxide behind. This method, known as enhanced oil and gas recovery, is the most common one used by carbon capture and storage projects in the U.S. today, and one reason CCS draws complaints from environmental groups.

Volcanic basalt rock and carbonate formations are considered good candidates for safe and long-term geological storage because they contain calcium and magnesium ions that interact with carbon dioxide, turning it into minerals. Iceland pioneered this method using its bedrock of volcanic basalt for carbon storage. Basalt also covers most of the oceanic crust, and scientists have been exploring the potential for sub-seafloor storage reservoirs.

In the U.S., a fourth option likely has the most potential for industrial carbon dioxide storage – deep saline aquifers, which is what Google plans to use. These widely distributed aquifers are porous and permeable sediment formations consisting of sandstone, limestone or dolostone. They’re filled with highly mineralized groundwater that cannot be used directly for drinking water but is very suitable for storing CO2.

Deep saline aquifers also have large storage capacities, ranging from about 1,000 to 20,000 gigatons. In comparison, the nation’s total carbon emissions from fossil fuels in 2024 were about 4.9 gigatons.

As of fall 2025, 21 industrial facilities across the U.S. used carbon capture and storage, including industries producing natural gas, fertilizer and biofuels, according to the Global CCS Institute’s 2025 report. Five of those use deep saline aquifers, and the rest involve enhanced oil or gas recovery. Eight more industrial carbon capture facilities were under construction.

Google’s plan is unique because it involves a power purchase agreement that makes building the power plant with carbon capture and storage possible.

Google’s deep saline aquifer storage plan

Google’s 400-megawatt natural gas power plant, to be built with Broadwing Energy, is designed to capture about 90% of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions and pipe them underground for permanent storage in a deep saline aquifer in the nearby Mount Simon sandstone formation.

The Mount Simon sandstone formation is a huge saline aquifer that lies underneath most of Illinois, southwestern Indiana, southern Ohio and western Kentucky. It has a layer of highly porous and permeable sandstone that makes it an ideal candidate for carbon dioxide injection. To keep the carbon dioxide in a supercritical state, that layer needs to be at least half a mile (800 meters) deep.

A thick layer of Eau Claire shale sits above the Mount Simon formation, serving as the caprock that helps prevent stored carbon dioxide from escaping. Except for some small regions near the Mississippi River, Eau Claire shale is considerably thick – more than 300 feet (90 meters) – throughout most of the Illinois basin.

The estimated storage capacity of the Mount Simon formation ranges from 27 gigatons to 109 gigatons of carbon dioxide.

The Google project plans to use an existing injection well site that was part of the first large-scale carbon storage demonstration in the Mount Simon formation. Food producer Archer Daniels Midland began injecting carbon dioxide there from nearby corn processing plants in 2012.

Carbon capture and storage has had challenges as the technology developed over the years, including a pipeline rupture in 2020 that forced evacuations in Satartia, Mississippi, and caused several people to lose consciousness. After a recent leak deep underground at the Archer Daniels Midland site in Illinois, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2025 required the company to improve its monitoring. Stored carbon dioxide had migrated into an unapproved area, but no threat to water supplies was reported.

Why does CCS matter?

Data centers are expanding quickly, and utilities will have to build more power capacity to keep up. The artificial intelligence company OpenAI is urging the U.S. to build 100 gigawatts of new capacity every year – doubling its current rate.

Many energy experts, including the International Energy Agency, believe carbon capture and storage will be necessary to slow climate change and keep global temperatures from reaching dangerous levels as energy demand rises.

Ramesh Agarwal 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. Google plans to power a new data center with fossil fuels, yet release almost no emissions – here’s how its carbon capture tech works – https://theconversation.com/google-plans-to-power-a-new-data-center-with-fossil-fuels-yet-release-almost-no-emissions-heres-how-its-carbon-capture-tech-works-270425

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By José Lemos, Professor of Oral Biology, University of Florida

Between Halloween candy, Thanksgiving pies and holiday cookies, the end of the year is often packed with opportunities to consume sugar. But what happens in your mouth during those first minutes and hours after eating those sweets?

While you’re likely aware that eating too much sugar can cause cavities – that is, damage to your teeth – you might be less familiar with how bacteria use those sugars to build a sticky film called plaque on your teeth as soon as you take that first sweet bite.

We are a team of microbiologists that studies how oral bacteria cause tooth decay. Here’s what happens in your mouth the moment sugar passes your lips – and how to protect your teeth:

An acid plunge

Within seconds of your first bite or sip of something sugary, the bacteria that make the human mouth their home start using those dietary sugars to grow and multiply. In the process of converting those sugars into energy, these bacteria produce large quantities of acids. As a result, just a minute or two after consuming high-sugar foods or drinks, the acidity of your mouth increases into levels that can dissolve enamel – that is, the minerals making up the surface of your teeth.

Luckily, saliva comes to the rescue before these acids can start corroding the surface of your teeth. It washes away excess sugars while also neutralizing the acids in your mouth.

Your mouth is also home to other bacteria that compete with cavity-causing bacteria for resources and space, fighting them off and restoring the acidity of your mouth to levels that aren’t harmful to teeth.

However, frequent consumption of sweets and sugary drinks can overfeed harmful bacteria in a way that neither saliva nor helpful bacteria can overcome.

An assault on enamel

Cavity-causing bacteria also use dietary sugars to make a sticky layer called a biofilm that acts like a fortress attached to the teeth. Biofilms are very hard to remove without mechanical force, such as from routinely brushing your teeth or cleaning at the dentist’s office.

In addition, biofilms impose a physical barrier that restricts what crosses its border, such that saliva can no longer do its job of neutralizing acid as well. To make matters worse, while cavity-causing bacteria are able to survive in these acidic conditions, the good bacteria fighting them cannot.

In these protected fortresses, cavity-causing bacteria are able to keep multiplying, keeping the acidity level of the mouth elevated and leading to further loss of tooth minerals until a cavity becomes visible or painful.

How to protect your (sweet) teeth

Before eating your next sugary treat, there are a few measures you can take to help keep the cavity-forming bacteria at bay and your teeth safe.

First, try to reduce the amount of sugar you eat and consume your sugary food or drink during a meal. This way, the increased saliva production that occurs while eating can help wash away sugars and neutralize acids in your mouth.

In addition, avoid snacking on sweets and sugary drinks throughout the day, especially those containing table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Continually exposing your mouth to sugar will keep its acidity level higher for longer periods of time.

Finally, remember to brush regularly, especially after meals, to remove as much dental plaque as possible. Daily flossing also helps remove plaque from areas that your toothbrush cannot reach.

José Lemos receives funding from NIH and Vaxcyte.

Jacqueline Abranches receives funding from NIH/NIDCR and Vaxcyte.

– ref. Sugar starts corroding your teeth within seconds – here’s how to protect your pearly whites from decay – https://theconversation.com/sugar-starts-corroding-your-teeth-within-seconds-heres-how-to-protect-your-pearly-whites-from-decay-269352

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Elinor Harrison, Faculty Affiliate, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis

On the first Sunday after being named leader of the Catholic Church in May 2025, Pope Leo XIV stood on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and addressed the tens of thousands of people gathered. Invoking tradition, he led the people in noontime prayer. But rather than reciting it, as his predecessors generally did, he sang.

In chanting the traditional Regina Caeli, the pope inspired what some have called a rebirth of Gregorian chant, a type of monophonic and unaccompanied singing done in Latin that dates back more than a thousand years.

The Vatican has been at the forefront of that push, launching an online initiative to teach Gregorian chant through short educational tutorials called “Let’s Sing with the Pope.” The stated goals of the initiative are to give Catholics worldwide an opportunity to “participate actively in the liturgy” and to “make the rich heritage of Gregorian chant accessible to all.”

These goals resonated with me. As a performing artist and scientist of human movement, I spent the past decade developing therapeutic techniques involving singing and dancing to help people with neurological disorders. Much like the pope’s initiative, these arts-based therapies require active participation, promote connection, and are accessible to anyone. Indeed, not only is singing a deeply ingrained human cultural activity, research increasingly shows how good it is for us.

The same old song and dance

For 15 years, I worked as a professional dancer and singer. In the course of that career, I became convinced that creating art through movement and song was integral to my well-being. Eventually, I decided to shift gears and study the science underpinning my longtime passion by looking at the benefits of dance for people with Parkinson’s disease.

The neurological condition, which affects over 10 million people worldwide, is caused by neuron loss in an area of the brain that is involved in movement and rhythmic processing – the basal ganglia. The disease causes a range of debilitating motor impairments, including walking instability.

Early on in my training, I suggested that people with Parkinson’s could improve the rhythm of their steps if they sang while they walked. Even as we began publishing our initial feasibility studies, people remained skeptical. Wouldn’t it be too hard for people with motor impairment to do two things at once?

But my own experience of singing and dancing simultaneously since I was a child suggested it could be innate. While Broadway performers do this at an extremely high level of artistry, singing and dancing are not limited to professionals. We teach children nursery rhymes with gestures; we spontaneously nod our heads to a favorite song; we sway to the beat while singing at a baseball game. Although people with Parkinson’s typically struggle to do two tasks at once, perhaps singing and moving were such natural activities that they could reinforce each other rather than distract.

A scientific case for song

Humans are, in effect, hardwired to sing and dance, and we likely evolved to do so. In every known culture, evidence exists of music, singing or chanting. The oldest discovered musical instruments are ivory and bone flutes dating back over 40,000 years. Before people played music, they likely sang. The discovery of a 60,000-year-old hyoid bone shaped like a modern human’s suggests our Neanderthal ancestors could sing.

In “The Descent of Man,” Charles Darwin speculated that a musical protolanguage, analogous to birdsong, was driven by sexual selection. Whatever the reason, singing and chanting have been integral parts of spiritual, cultural and healing practices around the world for thousands of years. Chanting practices, in which repetitive sounds are used to induce altered states of consciousness and connect with the spiritual realm, are ancient and diverse in their roots.

Though the evolutionary reasons remain disputed, modern science is increasingly validating what many traditions have long held: Singing and chanting can have profound benefits to physical, mental and social health, with both immediate and long-term effects.

Physically, the act of producing sound can strengthen the lungs and diaphragm and increase the amount of oxygen in the blood. Singing can also lower heart rate and blood pressure, reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Vocalizing can even improve your immune system, as active music participation can increase levels of immunoglobulin A, one of the body’s key antibodies to stave off illness.

Singing also improves mood and reduces stress.

Studies have shown that singing lowers cortisol levels, the primary stress hormone, in healthy adults and people with cancer or neurologic disorders. Singing may also rebalance autonomic nervous system activity by stimulating the vagus nerve and improving the body’s ability to respond to environmental stresses. Perhaps this is why singing has been called “the world’s most accessible stress reliever.”

Moreover, chanting may make you aware of your inner states while connecting to something larger. Repetitive chanting, as is common in rosary recitation and yogic mantras, can induce a meditative state, inducing mindfulness and altered states of consciousness. Neuroimaging studies show that chanting activates brainwaves associated with suspension of self-oriented and stress-related thoughts.

Singing as community

Singing alone is one thing, but singing with others brings about a host of other benefits, as anyone who has sung in a choir can likely attest.

Group singing provides a mood boost and improves overall well-being. Increased levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin during singing may promote feelings of social connection and bonding.

When people sing in unison, they synchronize not just their breath but also their heart rates. Heart rate variability, a measure of the body’s adaptability to stress, also improves during group singing, whether you’re an expert or a novice.

In my own research, singing has proven useful in yet another way: as a cue for movement. Matching footfalls to one’s own singing is an effective tool for improving walking that is better than passive listening. Seemingly, active vocalization requires a level of engagement, attention and effort that can translate into improved motor patterns. For people with Parkinson’s, for example, this simple activity can help them avoid a fall. We have shown that people with the disease, in spite of neural degeneration, activate similar brain regions as healthy controls. And it works even when you sing in your head.

Whether you choose to sing with the pope or not, you don’t need a mellifluous voice like his to raise your voice in song. You can sing in the shower. Join a choir. Chant that “om” at the end of yoga class. Releasing your voice might be easier than you think.

And, besides, it’s good for you.

Elinor Harrison received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Grammy Museum Foundation. She is affiliated with the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science and the Society for Music Perception and Cognition.

– ref. We are hardwired to sing − and it’s good for us, too – https://theconversation.com/we-are-hardwired-to-sing-and-its-good-for-us-too-262861

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, Professor of Labor Studies, Rutgers University

House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist Larry Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025. The exchanges, which were among more than 20,000 newly released public documents, documented how Summers – a former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president – repeatedly sought Epstein’s advice while pursuing an intimate relationship with a woman he was mentoring.

The two men exchanged texts and emails until July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on federal charges of the sex trafficking of minors. That was more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a girl who was under 18. Epstein died by suicide that August, while in jail.

“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” Summers wrote in a statement to The Crimson, Harvard’s newspaper, after the documents came to light. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he said in another statement.

The texts have ignited a new round of scrutiny of Summers and calls for Harvard to revoke his tenure.

Prestigious career is unraveling

These revelations are leading to the unraveling of Summers’ prestigious career.

The 70-year-old economist went on leave from teaching at Harvard on Nov. 19. He has also stepped down from several boards on which he was serving, including Yale University’s Budget Lab, OpenAI and two think tanks – the Center for American Progress and the Center for Global Development.

In addition, Harvard has launched an investigation into whether Summers and other people affiliated with the university broke university policies through their interactions with Epstein and should be subject to disciplinary action.

Many organizations have severed their ties with Summers. Summers’ withdrawal from public commitments include his role as a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV and as a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He also withdrew from the Group of 30, an international group of financial and economics experts.

Choice of a wingman was problematic

The correspondence that surfaced in late 2025 indicated that the prominent economist had engaged in more than casual banter with a convicted sex criminal.

Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man.” Summers asked Epstein about “getting horizontal” with his mentee – a female economist who had studied at Harvard. And, not for the first time, Summers questioned the intelligence of women.

Summers, who is one of the nation’s most influential economists, also complained about the growing intolerance among the “American elite” of sexual misconduct.

These comments call into question Summers’ judgment, behavior and beliefs and the power dynamics between him and the women he has mentored.

As a female economist and a board member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, I wasn’t surprised by the latest revelations, shocking as they may appear.

After all, it was Summers’ disparaging remarks about what he said was women’s relative inability to do math that led him to relinquish the Harvard presidency in 2006. And researchers have been documenting for years the gender bias that pervades the profession of economics.

A leaky pipeline in higher education

Summers taught my first-year Ph.D. macroeconomics course before he became a prominent policymaker during the Clinton administration, and he advised me during his office hours. Thankfully I did not experience any sexual harassment, but as an economics doctoral candidate at Harvard in the late 1980s, I did gain firsthand insight into the elitist culture of the nation’s top economics program.

Back then, only about 1 in 5 of the people who earned a Ph.D. in economics in the U.S. were women. This percentage rose to 30.5% by 1995 and has barely budged since then.

In 2024, according to the National Science Foundation, 34.2% of newly minted economics Ph.D.s – about 1 in 3 – in the U.S. were women, a considerably lower share than in other social sciences, business, the humanities and science.

After earning doctoral degrees in economics, women face a leaky pipeline in the tenure track, the highest-paid, most secure and prestigious academic jobs. The higher the rank, the lower the representation of women.

In 2024, 34% of assistant professors in economics were women, but only 28% of tenured associate professors – the next step on the ladder – were women. And just 18% of tenured full professors in economics were women.

The gender gap is wider in influential positions, such as economics department chairs and the editorial board members of economics journals. As of 2019, only 24% of the 55,035 editorial board members of economics journals were women. A brief look at the websites of the top 10 economics departments in late 2025 indicates that only one of those 10 department chairs is a woman.

Publication patterns also reflect this inequality. Women are substantially underrepresented as authors in the top economics journals, and this imbalance is not explained by quality differences. Rather, studies have found that women face higher hurdles in peer review, departmental support and finding productive co-authors.

Chilly climate

The data paints a clear picture of systemic bias in the profession’s practices and culture. That bias influences who succeeds and who is sidelined.

A 2019 survey by the American Economic Association, a professional association for economists, documented widespread sexual discrimination and harassment. Almost half of the women surveyed among the association’s members said that they had experienced sexual discrimination that interfered with their careers in some way, and 43% reported having experienced offensive sexual behavior from another economist.

A follow-up survey in 2023 indicated that the association’s new initiatives to improve the professional climate had resulted in little improvement.

Beyond academia

Economists can influence policymakers’ decisions on interest rates, taxation and social spending. In turn, the underrepresentation of women in economics can hamper policymaking by limiting the range of perspectives that inform economic decisions.

Researchers have found that arguments from female economists are roughly 20% more persuasive in shaping public opinion than identical arguments from men.

And yet the gender gap still pervades economics outside academia. At the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, for example, women constituted just 23% of 411 research track economists in 2022.

Following its own code of conduct

“Economists have a professional obligation to conduct civil and respectful discourse in all forums,” the American Economic Association’s code of conduct states. The code gives organizations in economics a clear basis for deciding whether to keep or cut ties with Summers.

The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has called for all economic institutions to undertake investigations into Summers’ conduct.

As of early December, the extent to which economic journals and other economics groups are responding to the controversy was still unclear.

I believe that eliminating inequity in economics would take more than an investigation of Summers’ conduct. In my view, institutions and professional associations, including the American Economic Association, should strengthen and enforce codes of conduct that cover harassment, conflicts of interest and misuse of mentorship roles.

In addition, I think that Summers’ ties to Epstein are a powerful reminder of why university economics departments need clearer standards and more transparency in hiring, promotions and leadership appointments. Strengthening those standards would help them root out the sexism and other forms of elitism that have historically marked the profession so that academic success is driven more by merit than self-perpetuating privilege.

It makes little sense to me that the economics profession is claiming to wield authority while tolerating inequity and ethical lapses. Taking these steps toward greater accountability would help to restore trust.

Yana Rodgers serves on the board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. Dr. Summers taught her PhD macroeconomics course at Harvard University in 1988.

– ref. Larry Summers’ sexism is jeopardizing his power and privilege, but the entire economics profession hinders progress for women – https://theconversation.com/larry-summers-sexism-is-jeopardizing-his-power-and-privilege-but-the-entire-economics-profession-hinders-progress-for-women-270367

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Shannon Pickett, Professor of Psychology and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Purdue University

Many high school seniors are now focusing on what they will do once they graduate – or how they don’t at all know what is to come.

Families trying to guide and support these students at the juncture of a major life transition likely also feel nervous about the open-ended possibilities, from starting at a standard four-year college to not attending college at all.

I am a mental health counselor and psychology professor.

Here are four tips to help make deciding what comes after high school a little easier for everyone involved:

1. Shadow someone with a job you might want

I have worked with many college students who are interested in a particular career path, but are not familiar with the job’s day-to-day workings.

A parent, teacher or another adult in this student’s life could connect them with someone they shadow at work, even for a day, so the student can better understand what the job entails.

High school students may also find that interviewing someone who works in a particular field is another helpful way to narrow down career path options, or finalize their college decisions.

Research published in 2025 shows that high school students who complete an internship are better able to decide whether certain careers are a good fit for them.

2. Look at the numbers

Full-time students can pay anywhere from about US$4,000 for in-state tuition at a public state school per semester to just shy of $50,000 per semester at a private college or university. The average annual cost of tuition alone at a public college or university in 2025 is $10,340, while the average cost of a private school is $39,307.

Tuition continues to rise, though the rate of growth has slowed in the past few years.

About 56% of 2024 college graduates had taken out loans to pay for college.

Concerns about affording college often come up with clients who are deciding on whether or not to get a degree. Research has shown that financial stress and debt load are leading to an increase in students dropping out of college.

It can be helpful for some students to look at tuition costs and project what their monthly student loan payments would be like after graduation, given the expected salary range in particular careers. Financial planning could also help students consider the benefits and drawbacks of public, private, community colleges or vocational schools.

Even with planning, there is no guarantee that students will be able to get a job in their desired field, or quickly earn what they hope to make. No matter how prepared students might be, they should recognize that there are still factors outside their control.

3. Normalize other kinds of schools

I have found that some students feel they should go to a four-year college right after they graduate because it is what their families expect. Some students and parents see a four-year college as more prestigious than a two-year program, and believe it is more valuable in terms of long-term career growth.

That isn’t the right fit for everyone, though.

Enrollment at trade-focused schools increased almost 20% from the spring of 2020 through 2025, and now comprises 19.4% of public two-year college enrollment.

Going to a trade school or seeking a two-year associate’s degree can put students on a direct path to get a job in a technical area, such as becoming a registered nurse or electrician.

But there are also reasons for students to think carefully about trade schools.

In some cases, trade schools are for-profit institutions and have been subjected to federal investigation for wrongdoing. Some of these schools have been fined and forced to close.

Still, it is important for students to consider which path is personally best for them.

Research has shown that job satisfaction has a positive impact on mental health, and having a longer history with a career field leads to higher levels of job satisfaction.

4. Consider a gap year before shutting down the idea

One strategy that high school graduates have used in recent years is taking a year off between high school and college in order to better determine what is the right fit for a student. Approximately 2% to 3% of high school graduates take a gap year – typically before going on to enroll in college.

Some young people may travel during a gap year, volunteer, or get a job in their hometown.

Whatever the reason students take gap years, I have seen that the time off can be beneficial in certain situations. Taking a year off before starting college has also been shown to lead to better academic performance in college.

Shannon Pickett 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. Planning life after high school isn’t easy – 4 tips to help students and families navigate the process – https://theconversation.com/planning-life-after-high-school-isnt-easy-4-tips-to-help-students-and-families-navigate-the-process-263864

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Adrienne Marshall, Assistant Professor of Geology and Geological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

Ski season is here, but while the eastern half of the U.S. digs out from winter storms, the western U.S. snow season has been off to a very slow start.

The snowpack was far below normal across most of the West on Dec. 1, 2025. Denver didn’t see its first measurable snowfall until Nov. 29 – more than a month past normal, and its latest first-snow date on record.

But a late start to snow season isn’t necessarily reason to worry about the season ahead.

Adrienne Marshall, a hydrologist in Colorado who studies how snowfall is changing in the West, explains what forecasters are watching and how rising temperatures are affecting the future of the West’s beloved snow.

What are snow forecasters paying attention to right now?

It’s still early in the snow season, so there’s a lot of uncertainty in the forecasts. A late first snow doesn’t necessarily mean a low-snow year.

But there are some patterns that we know influence snowfall that forecasters are watching.

For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting La Niña conditions for this winter, possibly switching to neutral midway through. La Niña involves cooler-than-usual sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator west of South America. Cooler ocean temperatures in that region can influence weather patterns across the U.S., but so can several other factors.

La Niña – and its opposite, El Niño – don’t tell us what will happen for certain. Instead, they load the dice toward wetter or drier conditions, depending on where you are. La Niñas are generally associated with cooler, wetter conditions in the Pacific Northwest and a little bit warmer, drier conditions in the U.S. Southwest, but not always.

When we look at the consequences for snow, La Niña does tend to mean more snow in the Pacific Northwest and less in the Southwest, but, again, there’s a lot of variability.

Snow conditions also depend heavily on individual storms, and those are more random than the seasonal pattern indicated by La Niña.

If you look at NOAA’s seasonal outlook maps, most of Colorado and Utah are in the gap between the cooler and wetter pattern to the north and the warmer and drier pattern to the south expected during winter 2026. So, the outlook suggests roughly equal chances of more or less snow than normal and warmer or cooler weather across many major ski areas.

How is climate change affecting snowfall in the West?

In the West, snow measurements date back a century, so we can see some trends.

Starting in the 1920s, surveyors would go out into the mountains and measure the snowpack in March and April every year. Those records suggest snowfall has declined in most of the West. We also see evidence of more midwinter melting.

How much snow falls is driven by both temperature and precipitation, and temperature is warming

In the past few years, research has been able to directly attribute observed changes in the spring snowpack to human-caused climate change. Rising temperatures have led to decreases in snow, particularly in the Southwest. The effects of warming temperatures on overall precipitation are less clear, but the net effect in the western U.S. is a decrease in the spring snowpack.

When we look at climate change projections for the western U.S. in future years, we see with a high degree of confidence that we can expect less snow in warmer climates. In scenarios where the world produces more greenhouse gas emissions, that’s worse for snow seasons.

Should states be worried about water supplies?

This winter’s forecast isn’t extreme at this point, so the impact on the year’s water supplies is a pretty big question mark.

Snowpack – how much snow is on the ground in March or April – sums up the snowfall, minus the melt, for the year. The snowpack also affects water supplies for the rest of the year.

The West’s water infrastructure system was built assuming there would be a natural reservoir of snow in the mountains. California relies on the snowpack for about a third of its annual water supply.

However, rising temperatures are leading to earlier snowmelt in some areas. Evidence suggests that climate change is also expected to cause more rain-on-snow events at high elevations, which can cause very rapid snowmelt.

Both create challenges for water managers, who want to store as much snowmelt runoff as possible in reservoirs so it’s available through the summer, when states need it most for agriculture and for generating hydropower to meet high electricity demand. If the snow melts early, water resource managers face some tough decisions, because they also need to leave room in their reservoirs to manage flooding. Earlier snowmelt sometimes means they have to release stored water.

When we look at reservoir levels in the Colorado River basin, particularly the big reservoirs – Lake Powell and Lake Mead – we see a pattern of decline over time. They have had some very good snow and water years, and also particularly challenging ones, including a long-running drought. The long-term trends suggest an imbalance between supply and growing demand.

What else does snowfall affect, such as fire risk?

During low-snow years, the snowpack disappears sooner, and the soils dry out earlier in the year. That essentially leaves a longer summer dry period and more stress on trees.

There is evidence that we tend to have bigger fire seasons after low-snow winters. That can be because the forests are left with drier fuels, which sets the ecosystem up to burn. That’s obviously a major concern in the West.

Snow is also important to a lot of wildlife species that are adapted to it. One example is the wolverine, an endangered species that requires deep snow for denning over the winter.

What snow lessons should people take away from climate projections?

Overall, climate projections suggest our biggest snow years will be less snowy in anticipated warmer climates, and that very low snow years are expected to be more common.

But it’s important to remember that climate projections are based on scenarios of how much greenhouse gas might be emitted in the future – they are not predictions of the future. The world can still reduce its emissions to create a less risky scenario. In fact, while the most ambitious emissions reductions are looking less likely, the worst emissions scenarios are also less likely under current policies.

Understanding how choices can change climate projections can be empowering. Projections are saying: Here’s what we expect to happen if the world emits a lot of greenhouse gases, and here’s what we expect to happen if we emit fewer greenhouse gases based on recent trends.

The choices we make will affect our future snow seasons and the wider climate.

Adrienne Marshall receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, the Colorado Department of Transportation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and has received previous funding from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

– ref. Winter storms blanket the East, while the U.S. West is wondering: Where’s the snow? – https://theconversation.com/winter-storms-blanket-the-east-while-the-u-s-west-is-wondering-wheres-the-snow-270928

Source: The Conversation – USA – By SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics, University of Virginia

When the framers of what became the U.S. Constitution set out to draft the rules of our government on a hot, humid day in the summer of 1787, debates over details raged on.

But one thing the men agreed on was the power of a new, representative legislative branch. Article I – the first one, after all – details the awesome responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the Senate: power to levy taxes, fund the government, declare war, impeach justices and presidents, and approve treaties, among many, many others.

In comparison, Article II, detailing the responsibilities of the president, and Article III, detailing the Supreme Court, are rather brief – further deferring to the preferred branch, Congress, for actual policymaking.

At the helm of this new legislative centerpiece, there was only one leadership requirement: The House of Representatives must select a speaker of the House.

The position, modeled after parliamentary leaders in the British House of Commons, was meant to act as a nonpartisan moderator and referee. The framers famously disliked political parties, and they knew the importance of building coalitions to solve the young nation’s vast policy problems.

But this idealistic vision for leadership quickly dissolved.

The current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, holds a position that has strayed dramatically from this nonpartisan vision. Today, the leadership role is far more than legislative manager – it is a powerful, party-centric position that controls nearly every aspect of House activity.

And while most speakers have used their tenure to strengthen the position and the power of Congress as a whole, Johnson’s choice to lead by following President Donald Trump drifts the position even further from the framers’ vision of congressional primacy.

Centralizing power

By the early 1800s, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, first elected speaker in 1810 as a member of the Whig Party, used the position to pursue personal policy goals, most notably entry into the War of 1812 against Great Britain.

Speaker Thomas Reed continued this trend by enacting powerful procedures in 1890 that allowed his Republican majority party to steamroll opposition in the legislative process.

In 1899, Speaker David Henderson created a Republican “cabinet” of new chamber positions that directly answered to – and owed their newly elevated positions to – him.

In the 20th century, in an attempt to further control the legislation Congress considered, reformers solidified the speaker’s power over procedure and party. Speaker Joseph Cannon, a Republican who ascended to the position in 1903, commandeered the powerful Rules Committee, which allowed speakers to control not only which legislation received a vote but even the amending and voting process.

At the other end of the 20th century was an effort to retool the position into a fully partisan role. After being elected speaker in 1995, Republican Newt Gingrich expanded the responsibilities of the office beyond handling legislation by centralizing resources in the office of the speaker. Gingrich grew the size of leadership staff – and prevented policy caucuses from hiring their own. He controlled the flow of information from committee chairs to rank-and-file members, and even directed access to congressional activity by C-SPAN, the public service broadcaster that provides coverage of Congress.

As a result, the modern speaker of the House now plays a powerful role in the development and passage of legislation – a dynamic that scholars refer to as the “centralization” of Congress.

Part of this is out of necessity: The House in particular, with 435 members, requires someone to, well, lead. And as America has grown in population, economic power and the size of government, the policy problems Congress tackles have become more complex, making this job all the more important.

But the position that began as coalition-building has evolved into controlling the floor schedule and flow of information and coordinating and commandeering committee work. My work on Congress has also documented how leaders invoke their power to dictate constituent communication for members of their party and use campaign finance donations to bolster party loyalty.

This centralization has cemented the responsibilities of the speaker within the chamber. More importantly, it has elevated the speaker to a national party figure.

Major legislation passed

Some successful leaders have been able to translate these advantages to pass major party priorities: Speaker Sam Rayburn, a Democrat from Texas, began his tenure in 1940 and was the longest-serving speaker of the House, ultimately working with eight different presidents.

Under Rayburn’s leadership, Congress passed incredible projects, including the Marshall Plan to fund recovery and reconstruction in postwar Western Europe, and legislation to develop and construct the Interstate Highway System.

In the modern era, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first and only female speaker, began her tenure in 2007 and held together a diverse Democratic coalition to pass the Affordable Care Act into law.

But as the role of speaker has become one of proactive party leader, rather than passive chamber manager, not all speakers have been able to keep their party happy.

Protecting Congress’ power

John Boehner, a Republican who became speaker in 2011, was known for his procedural expertise and diplomatic skills. But he ultimately resigned after he relied on a bipartisan coalition to end a government shutdown in 2014 and avert financial crises, causing his support among his party to plummet.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in 2023 from the position by his own Republican Party after working with Democratic members to fund the government and maintain Congress’ power of the purse.

Although these decisions angered the party, they symbolized the enduring nature of the position’s intention: the protector of Article I powers. Speakers have used their growing array of policy acumen, procedural advantages and congressional resources to navigate the chamber through immense policy challenges, reinforcing Article I responsibilities – from levying taxes to reforming major programs that affect every American – that other branches simply could not ignore.

In short, a strengthened party leader has often strengthened Congress as a whole.

Although Johnson, the current speaker, inherited one of the most well-resourced speaker offices in U.S. history, he faces a dilemma in his position: solving enormous national policy challenges while managing an unruly party bound by loyalty to a leader outside of the chamber.

Johnson’s recent decision to keep Congress out of session for eight weeks during the entirety of the government shutdown indicates a balance of deference tilted toward party over the responsibilities of a powerful Congress.

This eight-week absence severely weakened the chamber. Not being in session meant no committee meetings, and thus, no oversight; no appropriations bills passed, and thus, more deference to executive-branch funding decisions; and no policy debates or formal declarations of war, and thus, domestic and foreign policy alike being determined by unelected bureaucrats and appointed judges.

Unfortunately for frustrated House members and their constituents, beyond new leadership, there is little recourse.

While the gradual, powerful concentration of authority has made the speaker’s office more responsive to party and national demands alike, it has also left the chamber dependent on the speaker to safeguard the power of the People’s House.

SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor 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. Speaker Johnson’s choice to lead by following the president goes against 200 years of House speakers building up the office’s power – https://theconversation.com/speaker-johnsons-choice-to-lead-by-following-the-president-goes-against-200-years-of-house-speakers-building-up-the-offices-power-270440

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Wendy Z. Goldman, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University

Many Americans know of Josef Stalin’s Terror of the late 1930s, during which more than 1 million people were arrested for political crimes, and over 680,000 executed.

Fewer know about the repressions that began after World War II and ended with Stalin’s death in 1953. Much like the repressions of the 1930s, they involved fabricated plots, arrests, coerced confessions and purges. Unlike the Terror of the 1930s, they were accompanied by a wave of state-sponsored antisemitism – including the purge of Jews from multiple occupations and unwritten quotas that limited their professional and educational opportunities.

The abolition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee on Nov. 20, 1948, and the arrest and execution of its members was central to this postwar assault. The committee’s elimination was accompanied by an “anti-cosmopolitan” campaign emphasizing Russian nationalism, Soviet patriotism and anti-Westernism. In certain ways, the campaign served as the mirror image of anti-communist and jingoistic propaganda in the United States at the time.

“Rootless cosmopolitan” became code for “Jewish,” and dismissals swept the arts, sciences and media. The Ministry of State Security arrested Jewish industrial leaders for sabotage and, in 1953, fabricated “the Doctor’s Plot,” which accused a group of predominately Jewish doctors who treated Kremlin officials of trying to assassinate Stalin and other party leaders.

The very idea of an antisemitic campaign following the massive Soviet losses in World War II presents an enigma. Of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, almost 2 million were murdered by the Nazis on Soviet soil. Why would Soviet leaders, who fought a bitter and costly war to defeat fascism, choose to attack the very group that the Nazis tried to annihilate?

My forthcoming book, “Stalin’s Final Terror: Antisemitism, Nationality Policy, and the Jewish Experience,” addresses this difficult question.

Clashing with the state

The Soviet state created the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1942 to aid the war effort at home and abroad. Its chairman, Solomon Mikhoels, was a renowned Yiddish actor and director of the State Yiddish Theater – one of the many cultural and scientific luminaries who led the committee.

The committee made an enormous contribution to the war effort, sending thousands of articles about fascism, the Jewish war experience and the Red Army for publication in the foreign press. Mikhoels and writer Itsik Fefer toured the United States, Mexico, Canada and Great Britain, where they were welcomed by rapturous crowds and raised millions of dollars.

In 1943, as the Red Army began liberating Soviet territories from German occupation, the committee was inundated by letters from surviving and returning Jews. Committee leaders tried to help people reclaim their homes, to distribute foreign aid and to identify and commemorate sites of Nazi war crimes. They wrote to Stalin suggesting the creation of a Jewish national republic in Crimea to replace destroyed communities in Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia.

But the state deemed these unsanctioned activities expressions of “bourgeois Jewish nationalism.” Some Communist Party leaders even insinuated that the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was being used by spies, and advocated its elimination.

The minister of state security, V.S. Abakumov, convinced Stalin that Mikhoels was spying for Jewish organizations in the United States, but Mikhoels was too well known at home and abroad to be arrested. In January 1948, Mikhoels was lured to a house on the outskirts of Minsk, crushed by a truck and dumped on a deserted road.

The murder, disguised as an accident, signaled a turning point in the government’s policy toward Soviet Jews. In November 1948, the government abolished the committee as “a center of anti-Soviet propaganda.” Fifteen of its leaders were arrested over the following months. The state shuttered the Yiddish publishing house, press, theaters, literary journals and writers association, and arrested hundreds of Yiddish cultural figures.

Unbowed in court

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee’s leaders were charged with bourgeois nationalism, treason and espionage. Tortured in prison and kept in cramped, freezing cells, they were forced to confess.

The Ministry of State Security hoped to stage a public show trial, but as soon as the physical coercion stopped, the defendants began to retract their confessions and write letters of protest. The evidence was based on these extracted confessions, and the state feared an international outcry.

After the group had already spent more than two years in prison, the case was reopened. M.D. Riumin, the new head of the investigatory unit, was intent on showing that the defendants directed Jewish nationalist organizations that infiltrated the government at every level. After new interrogations, an indictment was drawn up, sent to Stalin and approved by the Politburo.

A secret trial began in May 1952. Despite being physically broken, the defendants presented a powerful rebuttal.

Solomon Lozovskii, an old revolutionary and former deputy foreign minister, shredded the state’s accusations. Historian Iosif Iuzefovich retracted his confession and told the court that after numerous beatings, “I was ready to confess that I was the pope’s own nephew, acting on his direct personal orders.” Boris Shimeliovich, the director of a leading Moscow hospital, testified that he had received over 2,000 blows to his buttocks and heels. Even the chairman of the court began to doubt the charges.

Yet the defendants were convicted. Thirteen of the 15 were executed on Aug. 12, 1952. The executions were later commemorated as “The Night of the Murdered Poets, though only five of the victims were poets. Solomon Bregman, a labor leader, died in prison; Lina Shtern, a renowned scientist, was sentenced to exile.

After Stalin’s death, the defendants were exonerated. The case only became public, however, in 1988, when the country began a full reckoning with the Stalin era.

The final Terror

How do we explain this final Terror?

Jews had benefited enormously from the revolution in 1917, which eliminated czarist oppression, granted them equal rights and opened new educational and employment opportunities. They entered professions and held leading posts in the Communist Party. They were considered an official nationality, like Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Armenians and hundreds of other groups in the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Yet after the war, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee’s efforts to help Jewish survivors and commemorate the Holocaust were not acceptable to the state, which minimized the singularity of Jewish wartime experiences. The government identified advocacy solely on behalf of Jews, either at home or abroad, as “bourgeois nationalism” or Zionism.

Amid the intensifying Cold War, the government sought to mobilize popular support by resurrecting Russian nationalism, once an anathema to socialist revolutionaries. It reestablished many czarist discriminatory policies, creating obstacles to Jewish advancement and education. Despite the government’s initial support for the new state of Israel, it blocked the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee from participating in Jewish international organizations, which it viewed as a conduit for Western spies and Jewish nationalism.

Some historians believe that Stalin was preparing a larger Terror, including the deportation of the Jewish population, but his plans were disrupted by his death in 1953. Others disagree, asserting a lack of evidence.

Yet one point is worth pondering: Using the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Riumin aimed to build a larger case that would have targeted Jews in every institution for treason. He never succeeded, however, in staging a public trial or launching a wider hunt for enemies throughout the government.

The courage of the defendants thwarted Riumin’s venomous ambition. They testified bravely about their abuse and exposed the falsity of the charges. Revolutionaries committed to the struggle against fascism, they held firm to the end.

I have in the past received funding from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the ACLS, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am not currently receiving funding from any external organization.

– ref. Stalin’s postwar terror targeted Soviet Jews – in the name of ‘anti-cosmopolitanism’ – https://theconversation.com/stalins-postwar-terror-targeted-soviet-jews-in-the-name-of-anti-cosmopolitanism-265562