Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nigel Melville, Associate Professor of Information Systems, University of Michigan

Judging by a slew of recent corporate announcements, your next “co-worker” might be an artificial intelligence agent – doing the work of an assistant, job scheduler, morning debriefer, learning coach and more.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, describes a clear vision for a new world of omnipresent AI agents: “Every employee will have their own personalized AI assistant; every process is powered by AI agents, and every client experience has an AI concierge.”

In brick-and-mortar retail, Walmart is already implementing its vision around agents, which involves support of customers, in-store employees and other business areas, with supervisor agents assigning tasks to subagents much like managers oversee employees.

What these and many other large organizations realize is that agents don’t just answer questions, like an AI-powered search engine or simple chatbot. They complete real work by planning tasks, taking actions and checking results to achieve a goal.

But there’s a problem. Companies in industries ranging from finance and tech to logistics and legal are rapidly embracing the promise of AI agents. But the flesh-and-blood workers they’re meant to assist – and sometimes replace – are struggling to adapt, hurting morale and productivity in the process.

The result is a growing climate of fear about AI job insecurity. FOBO – fear of becoming obsolete – is now a thing. A recent survey by consultancy KPMG found that 52% of workers report they are concerned that AI could eventually take their jobs. And some are fighting back. In another survey, nearly one-third said they are actively sabotaging their company’s AI strategy.

To make matters worse, some of these AI agents are going rogue, deleting data or executing other unintended actions.

My research on AI and agent capabilities, value and risk, as well as emerging studies of the cognitive implications of AI, the future of work and the role of AI in workplace inequality, suggest two key lessons for anyone navigating this new AI agent reality:

First, learn how the agents you’re working with operate, including what they do well, where they fall short and how to catch mistakes.

Second, lean into your fundamentally human strengths. These are things agents can’t replicate. Doing so can also help you sustain your own health and well-being.

Rise of the AI agents

AI agents began entering the workforce in 2025 – mainly in tech, finance and customer service – as the next stage of the generative AI revolution. But in 2026, the AI-powered automators are increasingly being deployed in other areas, such as legal and compliance, supply chain management, research and development, healthcare services and retail.

One example is global transportation giant FedEx, which is planning an entire AI agent workforce for its logistic network. The company plans to create “manager agents,” “audit agents” and “worker agents” to create a trail of accountability for their actions, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The theme of agents working together is echoed by North American food service company Gordon Food Service, which is using cross-team agents to reshape its product sourcing strategy.

As companies rapidly adopt the latest AI systems, agents are taking on increasingly diverse roles in the workplace that leverage their ability to do autonomous work.

It’s all driven by economics, with 88% of early corporate adopters reporting a return on investment on at least one use of an AI agent, according to a Google survey of senior business leaders.

Retail giant Amazon says customers who engage with its Rufus AI agent while shopping are 60% more likely to make a purchase compared with those who don’t get help from Rufus. Overall, Rufus is expected to generate over $10 billion in additional annual sales for Amazon, compared with a baseline without Rufus.

Anticipating gains from agents, global consultancy McKinsey already has 25,000 agents doing various tasks. It plans to have as many AI agents as human workers by 2027.

And new model releases, such as Anthropic’s Mythos, will expand what is possible and likely accelerate agent deployment.

Agents still can’t do it alone

A 2023 study I conducted found that AI has the capacity to simulate human capabilities such as cognition, decision-making, creativity and collaboration with people and other agents. The simulation is imperfect, however, so agents need support.

For example, agents are resourceful and relentless. They try repeatedly until they get results, without the loss of motivation humans sometimes experience. But they can also behave unpredictably, even taking harmful actions, such as deleting emails or conducting a smear campaign. And research illustrates that agents can be easily tricked into bad behavior, such as overcorrecting when told not to do something, being persuaded by human appeals to urgency and simple manipulation tricks.

Agents can be quirky too, using odd emojis in formal business writing or responding cynically when you just want the facts. And unlike humans, agents lack emotion, self-awareness or intent. When they fail, such as by pursuing misaligned goals, it’s not personal any more than an espresso machine can break out of spite.

In short, agents can act in unpredictable ways, and it’s difficult to know when that will happen. Managing this uncertainty is a new task for employees, and it comes at a time when many employers have heightened expectations of productivity gains from adopting AI agents.

The bottom line is that if you understand how your agent behaves, you’ll be able to be more productive working with them, be in a better position to avoid risks and be more valued yourself.

Get to know your agent

So what do you do if your boss suddenly tells you you’ll be working with an AI agent from now on?

Just like you would with a new human colleague, the first thing you should do is get to know it. In essence, you need to learn how to collaborate with agents effectively, how to evaluate their performance, what makes them tick and associated ethical implications.

And then jump right in. Give the agent a task and observe how it responds. Try different approaches and pay attention to its output quality, behavior and style. Focus on three essentials:

• Clarity of intent: Define exactly what to do in clear instructions, what information your agent needs, the role your agent is performing, limitations on behavior, and what success looks like for the task.

• Evaluate results against clear criteria.

• Guide the agent during the task by answering questions as they arise.

Overall, this will help you effectively use and critically evaluate AI agents.

Leaning into your humanness

Your agent deskmate still needs you – and your humanness – to be effective.

There’s a growing understanding that in a world of ubiquitous agents, certain skills, such as analyzing information, are becoming less important, while other skills, such as interpersonal and communication skills, are increasing in importance. Think about it: No AI agent can read a room like a human can and pick up on the vibe.

But making the switch will not be easy. It will require psychological work.

Researcher Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic suggests connecting with others as only humans can do, and unlocking your curiosity, while your agent handles the drudgery. In other words, focus on qualities that AI agents don’t have, such as the ability to pick up on nonverbal cues, deliver a pitch with a human touch, manage conflict and build relationships. These skills are the glue that holds human teams together.

AI agents are likely to become a significant part of the workplace. But how and how fast that will happen is unknown.

To make the best of it, learn how to work effectively with agents and embrace your own humanness. This way, you’ll be in a better position to make informed decisions about how to interact with humans and agents alike.

Nigel Melville consults for organizations in the area of AI, owns shares in several tech companies that provide AI services, and has received grants from IT leadership organizations to conduct research on AI in organizations. He does not own shares in any companies that focus on agentic AI.

– ref. So your new ‘co-worker’ is an AI agent – here’s how to make the best of your human-machine relationship  – https://theconversation.com/so-your-new-co-worker-is-an-ai-agent-heres-how-to-make-the-best-of-your-human-machine-relationship-276011

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andrea Hagan, Instructor of Criminology & Justice, Loyola University New Orleans

The United States is experiencing one of the steepest declines in violent crime in modern history, including a murder rate at its lowest point in more than a century.

Homicides across 35 major American cities fell 21% in 2025, amounting to 922 fewer people killed. Robberies dropped 23%. Gun assaults declined 22%. Carjackings plummeted 43%.

Yet the Trump administration has yanked hundreds of millions of dollars from the programs that helped make those numbers possible.

As a scholar focused on how policy decisions and structural conditions shape crime in marginalized communities, I see a pattern forming that could put these historic gains at serious risk.

‘Wasteful grants’

In April 2025, the Department of Justice terminated 365 previously awarded grants. About US$500 million in promised funds evaporated, affecting more than 550 organizations across 48 states.

The cuts stretched across the public safety landscape: community violence intervention, victim services, law enforcement training, juvenile justice, offender reentry and criminal justice research.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described the cancellations as eliminating “wasteful grants.” The White House argued that the grant programs had been “funding DEI and cultural Marxism” rather than helping to keep Americans safe.

The DOJ’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal reduces the pool of funds for public safety and justice programs by an additional $850 million – about a 15% decrease from the prior year.

Bipartisan programs

On the ground, the effects of the cancellations were immediate.

Initiatives implementing a federal law to support ex-inmates with temporary housing, job training and healthcare lost $40 million in funding, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Unversity.

Many of the terminated programs had deep bipartisan roots.

Project Safe Neighborhoods, a crime-reduction initiative launched in 2001 under President George W. Bush, lost its training funds, the Council on Criminal Justice found. Also axed was an anti-terrorism program that had trained more than 430,000 state and local law enforcement officers and other partners since 1996.

More modest programs were targeted as well.

In rural Oregon, a DOJ grant had allowed the Union County district attorney to hire an investigator who, after a few years of probing a 43-year-old cold case involving the killing of a 21-year-old woman, finally developed some leads. When the money was cut, the investigation stopped.

Funding cliffs

The funding cuts couldn’t have come at a worse time. States and local jurisdictions were already facing looming cuts, as billions of dollars provided by President Joe Biden’s COVID recovery plan run out on Dec. 31, 2026.

Many local governments had used that money to build violence prevention programs from the ground up: employing community-based mediators, launching youth employment initiatives and expanding behavioral health teams.

And now? A double funding cliff with the sudden cancellation of DOJ grants, paired with the expiration of COVID recovery money.

In Chicago, this cliff has already forced a 43% cut to the city’s domestic violence prevention budget for 2026 – even as its share of domestic-related homicides rose 13% over the previous year.

Larger and more targeted

Criminology research helps explain the particular risks of abrupt disinvestment. Emory sociology professor Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory identifies a direct relationship between increased strain – economic pressure, blocked opportunities, the withdrawal of institutional support – and higher risks of criminal behavior.

Historical precedent reinforces the concern. In 2013, federal across-the-board spending cuts eliminated services for more than 955,000 crime victims in a single year. The capacity of the FBI and related agencies was slashed by the equivalent of more than 1,000 agents.

Between 2014 and 2016, the violent crime rate climbed 7%.

The 2025 cuts are substantially larger and more targeted, and have devastated some groups.

Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty and reduce violence through community-based interventions, shut down in August 2025 after losing more than $3 million in DOJ grants.

Local programs like Baltimore’s LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope lost $1.2 million to provide therapy for gun violence survivors.

“What shocked me the most … was what feels like the utter cruelty of it,” said Adam Rosenberg, who runs the center, referring to the cancellation of the funds.

As of April 2026, the DOJ has not paid out $200 million in approved grants to assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.

This comes after the department last year allowed more than 100 grants for human trafficking survivors to expire, affecting more than 5,000 victims, despite Congress allocating $88 million for these services.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania warn that cuts to violence prevention programs are likely to lead to increases in gun crime.

What happens next

The initiatives now losing funding are the ones that helped drive crime down in many American cities.

Community members trained in conflict mediation help extinguish tensions before they turn lethal. Youth programs provide alternatives to street economies. Forensic labs process the evidence that solves cases. Reentry programs keep people from cycling back through the system. With each serving a distinct function, together they form the infrastructure of public safety.

As funding for crime prevention from two main sources runs out, whether progress continues depends on what happens next.

Andrea Hagan 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. US violent crime is at its lowest in more than a century – but the funding that helped reduce it is disappearing – https://theconversation.com/us-violent-crime-is-at-its-lowest-in-more-than-a-century-but-the-funding-that-helped-reduce-it-is-disappearing-276834

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By A.D. Carson, Associate Professor of Hip-Hop, University of Virginia

After languishing on death row in Texas for nearly two decades, James G. Broadnax was executed on April 30, 2026.

In 2009, a nearly all-white jury convicted him of robbery and double murder. Broadnax’s lawyers believed the initial rejection of all Black candidates from the jury pool was unconstitutional. They also believed it was unconstitutional that prosecutors used 40 pages of Broadnax’s handwritten lyrics, which they characterized as “gangsta rap” that doubled as a “self-admission” of Broadnax’s criminal “mentality.”

The lyrics shown to the jury were not introduced during the phase of the trial that determined Broadnax’s guilt for robbery and murder. They were presented only during the sentencing phase, when the jury considered whether he should receive the death penalty.

In 2025, I published “Being Dope: Hip Hop and Theory through Mixtape Memoir.” The book uses prose and lyrics to explore common misconceptions about rap and rappers. Along with the way lyrics continue to be used to demonize people inside and outside the courtroom – in ways that no other art form has to contend with – I highlight how “rap” is often used as shorthand for violence, drugs and criminality.

When rap lyrics become death sentences

In 2019, Erik Nielson, a scholar whose work focuses on the use of rap music as evidence in criminal trials, co-wrote “Rap on Trial” with legal scholar Andrea Dennis. In the book, Nielson and Dennis highlight a pattern of prosecutors treating rap lyrics as confessions or evidence of motive, even though they’re typically fictional or exaggerated. Meanwhile, even though other art forms routinely involve characters, lyrics or imagery that depicts violence, they’re rarely used as evidence of guilt in the courtroom.

Dennis and Nielson, who’s a signatory on one of the amicus briefs that was filed in support of Broadnax, maintain a database of over 800 cases in which lyrics have been used as evidence.

It includes some well-known cases, but most of the entries in the database involve people who are not well known as rappers.

For instance, during the closing arguments in the trial of Dominique Green, Texas prosecutors read aloud graphic lyrics from a Geto Boys song. Green hadn’t written the lyrics, and there was no clear connection between him and the song. Critics like Nielsen say the move was intended to shape how the jury perceived Green, who was sentenced to death in 1994 and executed in 2004.

Broadnax met a similar fate. While high on PCP and marijuana, he’d initially confessed to the killings of Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in the Dallas suburbs in 2008. He later retracted his confession. In March 2026, Broadnax’s cousin and co-defendant, Demarius Cummings, signed a sworn statement admitting to pulling the trigger to kill Swan and Butler. Cummings had been tried separately and had already received life without parole.

Cummings said that he initially went along with Broadnax’s confession, but after 17 years – and learning in February 2026 that his cousin would be executed – he felt compelled to correct his previous statements.

Evidence corroborates Cummings’ admission. His DNA was found on the grip of the murder weapon and on the clothing of one of the victims. Broadnax’s DNA was not found on either.

Despite a flurry of last-minute appeals and amicus briefs, the state executed Broadnax.

From ‘Jim Crow’ to ‘authentically’ Black

In my view, the willingness of courts to accept rap lyrics as evidence emerges from popular entertainment’s long-standing deployment of negative stereotypes about Black people.

In the U.S., minstrel shows were among the first widely popular forms of mass entertainment. Performers were often white people who donned blackface to mock Black people through song, dance and slapstick comedy. Characters like Thomas Rice’s “Jim Crow” employed tropes of Black people as buffoonish, lazy and lascivious – stereotypes that underpinned the racist legal code of segregation that came to be known as Jim Crow laws.

Alongside legal segregation, separate and unequal categories emerged for Black music. In 1920, Mamie Smith released “Crazy Blues,” the first commercial blues recording by a Black artist. Recordings like Smith’s were cordoned off into their own separate category, called “race records.” In 1942, Billboard began charting another invented category that it dubbed the “Harlem Hit Parade.” Black music would go on to be called, at various points, “rhythm and blues,” “soul” and “urban contemporary” into the 1970s.

These genres helped market this music as “authentically” Black. I use quotes because I argue that these genres have always reflected the audience’s listening practices and expectations, as much as anything real or unique about Black people.

A boogeyman for America’s ills

By the 1980s and 1990s, rap music was likewise pigeonholed as a “Black” genre. And “gangsta rap” soon emerged as a subgenre that became, for some listeners, an effective stand-in for all the purported ills that plagued Black communities.

N.W.A. rapped about police brutality, violence and poverty, among other topics. Tracks like “F— Tha Police” were lyrically provocative and confrontational.

When Milt Ahlerich, an assistant director at the FBI, sent a letter to N.W.A.’s record label warning that the track could lead to disrespect and violence against law enforcement, the troupe saw a marketing opportunity, going on to brag that they were “the world’s most dangerous group.” And many audiences went on to interpret their tracks as documentary evidence of everyday Black life. In fact, I argue that this broader interpretation of rap music led, at least in part, to the eagerness with which the public initially supported the so-called “war on drugs,” which ended up disproportionately targeting Black communities in places like Decatur, Illinois, where I grew up.

Even when artists go to great pains to distinguish their art, many audiences simply want to believe all rap music and rap artists were doing and saying the same things. Their unwillingness to engage beyond the surface means a refusal to examine rap’s layered explorations of life, pride and pain, described through lyrical humor, social commentary and witty wordplay.

As Rolling Stone journalist Ed Kiersh wrote in 1986, “To much of white America, rap means mayhem and bloodletting.”

‘Being Dope’ is personal

For me, this is personal. I have been a rapper all of my professional life. In “Being Dope,” I write about teaching high school in Springfield, Illinois, where a local radio host used my music to try to paint me as unprofessional or worse, and called for me to be fired over it.

I decided to pursue a Ph.D. and study the rhetorical appeal of rap music. I wrote a rap album as my dissertation, and after becoming a professor of hip-hop, I published the first-ever peer-reviewed album with an academic press.

Rap has many functions. It’s a daily practice undertaken by ordinary people, not just the ones who aim to be famous. When I discuss the public perception of rappers, I highlight how I continue to grapple with the uneasiness my identity as a rapper can elicit in other people. I also focus on the stories of friends and family members, as well as people like Willie McCoy, Eric Reason and Jordan Davis – Black Americans whose deaths were blamed on rap music, a form of scapegoating I call “rapwashing.”

So when I see “rap” or “rapper” in a headline to imply guilt or provoke negative associations, I’m reminded of the truth in Kiersh’s statement. It’s even more troubling when rap lyrics are used to help deliver a death sentence.

Gangsta rap’s effectiveness as a prosecutorial tool, like the minstrel shows before it, depends on audiences mistaking caricature for authenticity, and hinges on hearing artistic expression as documentary evidence of criminal actions. Using gangsta rap to justify state-sanctioned executions only extends the dark legacy of Jim Crow into the present.

A.D. Carson 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. After the execution of James G. Broadnax in Texas, questions persist over use of rap lyrics as evidence – https://theconversation.com/after-the-execution-of-james-g-broadnax-in-texas-questions-persist-over-use-of-rap-lyrics-as-evidence-280901

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Marie-Claire Beaulieu, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Tufts University

On Mother’s Day, Americans go all out with gift-buying and dining out to honor the women in their lives. In fact, according to some estimates, consumer spending in the United States on this day is around US$34 billion.

This consumerist emphasis has long been criticized – including by the holiday’s founder, Anna Jarvis. She started the celebration in 1908 to honor her own mother, Civil War-era activist Ann Jarvis, who founded Mothers’ Day Work Clubs in her native West Virginia.

These clubs were associations of local mothers who came together for collective workdays during which they provided education and assistance to families. When the Civil War broke out, the clubs pivoted to promoting peace and reconciliation and offered food and medical assistance to both Union and Confederate soldiers. These mothers viewed peace as the only way to preserve their communities and to ensure the health and well-being of all.

As a scholar of Greek and Roman antiquity, I’m aware that honoring motherhood goes far beyond women’s work in the domestic sphere. In fact, for millennia the role of mothers has included not only childbearing and education but also protection over the community as a whole, especially through advocacy for peace.

Texts dating as far back as the fifth century B.C.E. show mothers promoting peace. In Aristophanes’ comedy “Lysistrata,” the women of Athens unite to end the Peloponnesian War. The leader of the peace movement argues that women suffer twice as much as men in war – bearing children only to send them off to die as soldiers.

Mothers and ancient goddesses

In the ancient world, motherhood itself guaranteed a woman’s power within her family and community, especially if the baby was male. The birth provided an heir for the family and ensured that the woman was not going to be rejected by her husband for childlessness.

In fact, as classical scholar Florencia Foxley explains, motherhood elevated a woman to the rank of protectress and sustainer of the city because she provided a new generation of citizens and soldiers for the community.

The birth of children also gave the woman unofficial power and influence over the political decisions made by her husband and sons, as dramatized in the play “Lysistrata.”

The cult of the Greek goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus and queen of the gods, reflects this dual function of mothers as protectors of children and of communities in the ancient world.

Hera was worshipped in wedding rituals, and she presided over childbirth in the figure of her daughter Eileithyia, the midwife goddess. Beyond the domestic sphere, Hera was also the divine protectress of the ancient city of Argos.

In Rome, under her Latin name Juno, she was worshipped with the epithets of Pronuba as the goddess of marriage, and Lucina as the goddess of childbirth. Nonetheless, Juno was also an integral part of the Capitoline Triad with Jupiter and Minerva, the trio of deities that protected the city. In fact, Juno was credited with saving Rome from an attack by the Gauls in 390 B.C.E. when her sacred geese warned the Romans of the approaching enemy army.

Contemporary practices

The tremendous power of women as peace advocates and protectors of communities continues today.

As journalist Margot Adler has shown, some neo-pagans believe that ancient societies that worshipped mother deities were more peaceful than cultures with patriarchal religious traditions. Today, these worshippers seek to revive the cults of mother deities in order to return to this harmonious way of life. They invoke mother goddesses to promote the political power of women, demilitarization and harmony with the natural world, as well as world peace.

Similarly, “Lysistrata” continues to inspire women’s advocacy for peace worldwide. In 2003, for instance, peace activists Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower advocated against the Iraq War by coordinating over 1,000 readings of “Lysistrata” worldwide in a single day.

Admittedly, the play presents female characters in ridiculous ways and, as classical scholar Mary Beard has pointed out, the ending of the play makes it clear that women’s political power is only a fantasy. Yet the play acknowledges that women suffered disproportionately from the consequences of war in ancient times, just as they do today.

The play also acknowledges, albeit in a humorous way, that women wield tremendous power for peace, which is borne out today as well. In fact, according to a study by King’s College London, “states where women hold more political power are less likely to go to war and less likely to commit human rights abuses.”

In a different context, Catholics around the world honor Mary as a mother figure associated with peace and justice. One of her manifestations, Our Lady of Guadalupe, is a popular figure of veneration in Mexico and Latin America, particularly among people of Indigenous descent.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is represented pregnant and venerated by devotees seeking protection and peace. Pope John Paul II, in a public prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1979, asked her to “grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples.”

The way Mother’s Day is celebrated in the U.S. today conspicuously omits the tremendous power that women wield beyond the domestic sphere. While women’s work raising children and supporting their families is important and should always be honored, Anna Jarvis envisioned this day as more expansive – a day that honors women as political and moral actors, especially as agents of peace globally.

Marie-Claire Beaulieu 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. From ancient goddesses to modern peace activists − Mother’s Day celebrates women’s political power – https://theconversation.com/from-ancient-goddesses-to-modern-peace-activists-mothers-day-celebrates-womens-political-power-275805

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ahmed Hamza, Associate Teaching Professor of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder

The Trump administration is looking to develop a process that would have the federal government review the safety of powerful artificial intelligence models before approving their release, according to a report in The New York Times on May 4, 2026. The move would stand in contrast to the administration’s generally anti-regulatory approach to industry and comes in the wake of Anthropic voluntarily postponing the release of its latest AI model, Mythos.

Anthropic was concerned because when it tested Mythos, the model found thousands of vulnerabilities in operating systems and web browsers. The implication was that if a cybercriminal or hostile foreign agent had Mythos, they could penetrate computer systems worldwide and compromise the basic computer code underlying public safety, national economies and military security.

As a result, Anthropic gave limited access only to about 50 companies and organizations managing critical infrastructure as part of its Project Glasswing. The initiative aims to help governments and corporations close software loopholes Mythos has identified. When Anthropic sought to broaden the number of organizations with access to Mythos, the White House objected.

Security experts, meanwhile, have expressed concern that AI researchers in nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea might soon create similarly powerful AI models and use them to threaten or attack other countries, or to create chaos in those countries’ economies.

Major challenges

As a computer scientist in this area, my work on computer security and malware shows it’s difficult to even define what safety measures the field should take to make models safe to use. Yet the future of many industries, critical infrastructure, national security and human well-being seems to depend on achieving AI models that are truthful, ethical and reasonable.

The first of these challenges, truthfulness and factual accuracy, came to light when OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022. People worldwide realized that the output of large language models does not necessarily reflect a truthful reality. The goal for AI companies was coherent writing that read as if a human wrote it. If an output was factually flawed, programmers wrote it off as a “hallucination” by the model.

After AI programs led to some legal catastrophes and stock market panic, AI companies have made at least some effort to ensure that their models avoid falsehoods and inaccuracies.

Nonetheless, false information stated confidently within a sea of solid-sounding text can take on a life of its own. Because of the consequences, research is underway on how to engineer truthfulness into models, or at least prevent hallucination.

Truthfulness and grounding in reality are part of a larger and more general concern about safe AI models. The very pace of their advancement may pose a threat.

Troubling breaches by AI bots

Numerous incidents in the past two years show that large language models have already caused harm.

The National Law Review uncovered multiple cases in 2024 and 2025 of teenagers and children using chatbots to explore self-harm, in some cases with lethal consequences. Lawsuits have since been filed claiming that the chatbots encouraged suicide.

In 2025, investigators at cybersecurity company ESET Research discovered a program called PromptLock. It uses large language models to generate ransomware that executes attacks and decides autonomously whether to steal files or encrypt them for ransom.

Anthropic engineers revealed that a group of people whom they suspected were sponsored by the Chinese government used Anthropic’s Claude model to launch a “highly sophisticated espionage campaign” that attempted to infiltrated roughly 30 targets around the world and “succeeded in a small number of cases.” Anthropic said it disrupted the campaign by banning accounts involved in the campaign, notifying affected organizations and coordinating with authorities.

In 2024 Microsoft and OpenAI warned that foreign agencies in Russia, Iran, China and other countries used AI tools and large language models to automate attacks and to increase attack sophistication.

Finally, whistleblowers have filed reports about governments using AI tools for real-time decision-making in both military and civilian arenas. In my view, this could lead to a completely new level of potential harm to innocent people.

How to lessen the danger

These incidents, and the broad variety of dangers they present, raise the question of whether society should encourage clearer, bolder safety principles for AI corporations and the governments that employ their technology. Are there reliable technical solutions that could keep AI from being used maliciously?

AI providers have differed widely in their treatment of ethics and safety, but they have attempted to engineer better models by inserting additional instructions on best safety practices or code that can proactively detect and resist attacks.

But it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to provide a guarantee of safety against malicious users. In 2025 researchers from the U.S. and Europe showed that any filtering safety method imposed on an existing AI model is unreliable.

This means that judgment about truth and safe behavior must be baked into the model, not added later. Sure enough, recent findings show that the leading AI models were 100% successful at circumventing imposed safety measures, a capability known as jailbreaking.

Research also indicates that the leading large language models exhibit a bizarre emergent feature: They can fake their safety alignment to appear harmless, helpful and truthful, hiding toxic behavior.

Today there are no definitive answers about what safe AI looks like. I think it’s fair to assert that software engineers do not know how to build reliable protections into AI models. Nor do members of Congress, who in April met to consider special bills on AI ethics and safety.

Steps forward

Some basic steps could help users and regulators assess the ethical and safety standards in an AI program. Large language models that are open, rather than proprietary, are easier to assess. Knowing which data a model is trained on helps.

Also, AI companies could clearly define their ethics principles. Governments could clearly define and enforce legal constraints that reflect the expectations of society, without being influenced by AI campaigners.

Any vast set of challenges can appear like a mountain: foreboding, encased in moving mist, insurmountable. But as mountain climbers will tell you, clarity in strategy, careful planning and a collaborative persistence can help you scale the peak.

Ahmed Hamza receives funding from the NSF.

– ref. White House wants to vet powerful AI models for risks − a computer scientist explains why AI safety is so difficult – https://theconversation.com/white-house-wants-to-vet-powerful-ai-models-for-risks-a-computer-scientist-explains-why-ai-safety-is-so-difficult-281117

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gabrielle Principe, Professor of Psychology, College of Charleston

Hollywood loves a superpower. Not all involve capes or cosmic rays. Some are cognitive: characters who can remember everything. In movies and on TV, viewers repeatedly encounter those with extraordinary minds who glance once at a page, a room or a face – and later recreate every detail with surgical precision.

You see it everywhere: “Suits,” “Sherlock” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Even in children’s literature there’s fifth grader Cam Jansen, who activates her photolike memory by saying “Click!”

Most recently, it appeared in the television series “The Pitt,” set in a hospital emergency department. When the digital patient board suddenly went offline, medical student Joy Kwon saved the day by effortlessly reciting from memory every lost detail – names, rooms, doctors, conditions, vitals. It’s a gripping moment. The stakes are high, recall is perfect, and the implication is clear: Some people have minds that function like high-resolution cameras.

The idea of photographic memory is simple and powerful: Experience is captured objectively, stored completely and retrieved perfectly. See it once, keep it forever.

There’s just one problem. There’s no scientific evidence it exists.

Your memory doesn’t record, it reconstructs

As a memory researcher, I understand that belief in photographic memory is common and the idea is compelling. But it is simply wrong.

Human memory does not work like a recording device. It’s a reconstructive process even among those with the most extraordinary skills. When you recall an event, memory doesn’t just hand you your experiences the same way every time. It’s never a matter of simply accessing, retrieving and playing back a static record of a stored slice of the past.

Rather, you reconstruct the past by piecing together the remnants of experience available to you in the moment of recollection. It’s a process shaped by a range of factors, including the search cues you use; your present knowledge, attitudes and goals; and your current state of mind or mood.

Because each of these factors is dynamic and changing, you’ll remember the past differently today – if ever so slightly – from how you remembered it yesterday, and differently from how you’ll remember it tomorrow. What you remember is not only incomplete but also inexact.

A closer look at extraordinary memory

Some people, such as memory competition champions, do have extraordinary memories. They can memorize thousands of digits or entire decks of cards in minutes. Their feats are real, but they don’t come from a memory that takes mental snapshots.

Instead, these people rely on strategies – mental frameworks built through thousands of hours of deliberate practice to scaffold their memory in specific domains. Without these strategies and in other aspects of life, their recall looks pretty much like everyone else’s. Experts’ performance reflects better methods, not different machinery.

In the scientific literature, the ability that comes closest to photographic memory is eidetic imagery: a form of visual mental imagery in which people claim they can briefly continue to “see” pictures they carefully studied and that are then removed from view.

This ability is rare, is seen mostly in children, and usually disappears by adolescence. Even at its peak, however, it falls short of the Hollywood ideal. Eidetic images fade quickly and are not perfectly accurate. They can include distortions and even details that were not seen.

It’s exactly what you’d expect from a reconstructive memory system – and exactly what you would not expect from a literal recording.

Forgetting is a feature and not a flaw

The myth about photographic memories feeds into the idea that your memory has failed if you can’t remember – that if your memory worked right, it would operate like a camera. When you can’t retrieve information or you lose it entirely, it can feel like something has gone wrong.

In reality, forgetting is functional. Without it, we’d never get by.

For instance, people use their memories of the past to forecast the future. Perfect memory would be a liability. Forgetting washes out the details of specific episodes and retains the gist so you can apply past experiences to novel situations, not just those that exactly match what happened before.

Forgetting also guards your emotional health. The dulling of memories for negative events, like say an embarrassing episode, makes it easier for you to move on than if you reexperienced all the details in full force every time the event came to mind.

Forgetting protects your sense of self as well. Memories of your past form the foundation of your identity. To help maintain a stable self-concept, people selectively modify or even forget those memories that challenge their views of themselves.

The rare individuals who come closest to having near-perfect memory often reveal the downsides. People with highly superior autobiographical memory can remember nearly every day of their lives in vivid detail. If you ask one of these people to recall what they did on Nov. 24, 1999, they likely can tell you.

Their extraordinary ability seems to come from a habitual, even compulsive, reflection on their past and a focus on anchoring memories to dates. However, this skill is limited to autobiographical events, and they are prone to various kinds of memory distortions and errors just like everyone else.

While this ability might sound like an advantage, many people with highly superior autobiographical memory describe it as exhausting. They struggle to move past negative experiences because their memories make them seem as sharp as ever.

Accurate – and empowering – view of memory

Beliefs about “perfect memory” shape how people judge students, eyewitnesses, patients and even themselves. They influence legal decisions, educational practices and unrealistic expectations about what human minds can – and should – do.

Letting go of the camera metaphor could be a step toward better understanding how memory works. The brain is not a roll of film, it’s a storyteller – one that edits, interprets and reshapes the past in light of the present.

And that’s not a limitation. It’s a superpower.

Gabrielle Principe 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. Photographic memory is a myth – here’s what research really says about remembering – https://theconversation.com/photographic-memory-is-a-myth-heres-what-research-really-says-about-remembering-278160

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ingrid C. Romero, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Approximately 145 million: That’s the number of specimens – including plants, animals, minerals and human artifacts – curators estimate are held in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. However, these estimates do not reflect the billions of tiny individual specimens contained on microscope slides – thin pieces of glass that fix objects in place for observation – each representing a record of a species at a specific place and time.

Microscope slide collections are an underused part of natural history collections because they are small, fragile and generally not well cataloged. One slide is usually recorded as a single specimen, even though it may contain hundreds of thousands of identifiable samples. They play a significant role in documenting life both present and past, and they are also a core educational resource for training future scientists.

Our team of plant paleontologists and evolutionary biologists use microscopy techniques to extract the full potential of natural history collections. In our recently published research in the journal PLoS One, we developed a way to digitally image whole microscope slides and make the specimens they contain available to scientists and students around the world.

Unseen troves of specimens

The Denver Pollen Collection contains about 70,000 slides of fossilized pollen extracted from rocks of many geological ages. The collection, now housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, represents over 60 years of effort by scores of geologists and paleontologists working for the U.S. Geological Survey, gathering specimens from all over the continental U.S., Alaska and many other parts of the world.

Presented with one of the most complete fossil records of plant life in existence, scientists have used this collection to understand how vegetation and climate changed over geological time.

For example, through studying the Denver Pollen Collection, researchers discovered that the North Slope of Alaska had a temperate to subtropical climate about 50 to 56 million years ago that allowed palm trees to grow north of the Arctic Circle.

The collection was also critical in determining how quickly vegetation recovered from the asteroid impact that caused mass extinctions 66 million years ago.

Despite its scientific value, the number of specimens in the Denver Pollen Collection had never been estimated. When the Smithsonian received the collection in 2021, our team began digitally imaging some of these slides over the course of several years.

We estimate this collection holds approximately 4.3 billion microfossils – four times more specimens than were previously estimated to exist in all the collections of the world’s 73 largest natural history museums combined.

Preserving specimens through digitization

Digitizing microscope slides is important for preserving the information they contain. Many slides are deteriorating – the mounting medium that holds the cover slips can yellow and crack with time, obscuring the specimens from view.

In our study, we show how using up-to-date microscope slide scanners can help researchers digitize and preserve microspecimens – including pollen, diatoms and radiolarians – as well as small insects and various plant and fungal tissues. These scanners can digitize full slides at high resolution. Each scan takes seconds to a few minutes, depending on the size of the specimen. They can also capture 3D images of organs and features within specimens.

Traditionally, natural history studies relied on the expertise of a single specialist. An expert might spend dozens of hours manually analyzing a microscope slide and find only a fraction of the thousands of specimens present. Additionally, other researchers can verify their findings only if they have access to the same slide.

With slide scanning and digital imaging, researchers can use AI models to detect most of the specimens in a slide and record where they’re located on a slide. This makes it easier to not only relocate individual specimens but also access them remotely across the web, thus improving researchers’ ability to replicate and verify the accuracy of studies.

Digitizing specimens on microscope slides not only preserves information as the slides themselves deteriorate, but it also makes it more accessible for researchers, students and the public.

Digital slide images give students in botany, entomology, micropaleontology and other fields access to vast reference collections that may not be available in their home countries. This enlarges the talent pool in these fields by allowing students from all over the globe to participate in original research, such as on how climate change is affecting extinction and the migration of different species.

Open-access databases of digital microscopy also make scientific collaboration easier. Researchers can examine and measure images at any location at any time, without needing to handle the physical slide. This reduces barriers to sharing science as well as the risk of damaging slides during transportation or handling.

Future of microscope slide collections

Digitizing microscope slides in natural history museums and automating how microfossils are labeled opens up more opportunities for researchers to share and study hundreds of billions of specimens in collections around the globe.

However, digitization is not without cost. We estimate that fully digitizing the Denver Pollen Collection would require almost five years of continuous work and about 3.5 petabytes of storage. But we believe these efforts will return a massive dataset that captures changes in the Earth’s flora and climate over geological time.

Digital microscopy opens new horizons for fields such as micropaleontology to explore the biodiversity of the planet. There is a whole galaxy of nature waiting to be seen … and it is already stored in museums and universities around the world.

Ingrid C. Romero has received funding from the Smithsonian Institution Climate Change Fellowship, the National Museum of Natural History Office of the Associated Director for Science, and the Smithsonian Office of the Undersecretary for Science.
She is affiliated with The Micropaleontological Society, and currently she is the Palynology Group Chair.

Scott L. Wing receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution (Life on a Sustainable Planet Program and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History).

– ref. Galaxies of life are collecting dust in museums – digitizing microscope slides can uncover billions of fossils for natural history – https://theconversation.com/galaxies-of-life-are-collecting-dust-in-museums-digitizing-microscope-slides-can-uncover-billions-of-fossils-for-natural-history-281304

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Steph Tai, Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The question of which court should hear a case isn’t always as easy as it might seem – and the answer can sometimes make a difference in the potential outcome. For instance, in 2013, the government of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, decided to sue several oil companies for violating a 1978 state law that required a state permit for oil production along the Louisiana coast.

Some of that oil production activity dated back even further, to World War II. The oil companies, led by Chevron, fought the lawsuit in part by saying they were under a federal contract and following federal directives to boost oil production to support the war effort.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court over a question that was not about the substance of the case – whether the companies had or had not violated the state law – but rather whether the dispute should be heard in a Louisiana state court, or whether it should be heard in federal court. On April 17, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision making it easier for companies to move cases from state to federal courts. The ruling is likely to make it harder for the public to seek redress from companies they believe acted wrongly.

Jurisdiction questions

The question of state versus federal jurisdiction is a technical legal one, but for a scholar who studies local challenges to quasi-federal actions, I can report that the difference can be significant.

Common wisdom among attorneys is that state courts are more friendly to plaintiffs than federal courts are, since state trial juries are drawn from local pools, which are potentially more sympathetic to their own communities. But in fact, the distinction – and the prospect for any particular outcome – is not quite so clear because federal judges exert more control over jury selection than state judges do.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys may also be more familiar with local state court rules and procedures than they are with the mechanics of how federal courts operate – and some state courts may be more welcoming to plaintiffs’ claims of having been harmed, and therefore more likely to find that they have standing to file a lawsuit. And in some state courts, it is harder for a defendant to get a case quickly dismissed by a judge than is typical in federal court.

The dispute in Louisiana

In the Plaquemines Parish case against Chevron, the oil companies argued that because some of their drilling activities were conducted as federal contractors during the war, they were acting as an agent of the federal government, so the case belonged in federal court.

Plaquemines Parish said the companies had significant control themselves over how they increased production and what they did to produce oil, and therefore the dispute was about the state law’s permitting requirements and should be heard in state court.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, sided with Chevron, saying the company had “plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties – not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral” connection.

Effect on government contractors

This opinion sets a precedent, which courts typically follow for future similar cases, that has the potential to broadly affect corporate behavior, especially in connection with government-related work.

For instance, the federal government is seeking private contractors to help with artificial intelligence services for the Department of Defense, operating Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and potentially privatizing the Transportation Security Administration.

Anyone alleging harm from these practices – such as if generative AI systems or airport screening practices unfairly discriminate against some people, or the construction of a new ICE detention center damages a local waterway – would likely have to take the more significant and more demanding step of suing in federal court, rather than state court, to seek compensation or redress.

Steph Tai 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. As government privatization efforts grow, lawsuits against federal contractors get more difficult – https://theconversation.com/as-government-privatization-efforts-grow-lawsuits-against-federal-contractors-get-more-difficult-277447

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mark E. Wildmon, Assistant Professor of School Psychology, Mississippi State University

When schools abruptly closed their doors at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, millions of students unexpectedly started learning at home, with or without the help of Zoom lessons.

Many observers – and perhaps some parents – assumed these kids would return to in-person classrooms once the COVID-19 risk decreased. But homeschooling numbers indicate that many families chose to keep their kids home after the pandemic.

Today, more than 6% of school-age children – or 3.4 million students – are learning at home.

This is higher than before the COVID-19 online learning period. In March 2020, 5.4% of school-age children in the U.S. were homeschooled.

Growth in homeschooling has been gradual.

About 3.4% of K-12 students in the U.S. were homeschooled during the 2022-23 academic year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

More than one-third of the 30 states plus Washington, D.C., that report homeschooling trends hit record enrollment as of November 2025. The growth is particularly strong in Midwestern and Southeastern states.

Homeschooling has a long history in the U.S. and is legal in all 50 states. States have varying requirements for homeschooling families, from close state regulation to none at all.

Contrary to what many people thought, the pandemic alone didn’t drive this increase. It gave families who were already inclined toward homeschooling a low-risk opportunity to try it.

Families who found benefits from homeschooling continued to teach their children at home. In essence, the forced opportunity to help their kids learn at home during the pandemic let the families experience the benefits of the experience without the permanent risk.

A jumping-off point

We are researchers at Mississippi State University who study why parents want to homeschool. As part of our forthcoming research, we conducted a survey in 2024 with 201 homeschooling parents, primarily those who live in Southern states and were part of national homeschooling networks and educational organizations.

The parents we surveyed were divided into two groups: parents who began homeschooling before the pandemic and those who started homeschooling during the pandemic. While this is a self-selected sample and not nationally representative, it allowed us to look at the differences between people who began homeschooling before and during the pandemic.

The findings tell a very different story than some narratives suggest.

Rather than saying COVID-19 prompted them to begin homeschooling, many parents said that they found during the pandemic there were certain homeschooling benefits. This encouraged them to keep their kids learning at home after schools reopened.

For example, 43% percent of the parents we surveyed said there were more benefits to homeschooling than public schooling – such as flexible work arrangements and more family time.

One parent, a former teacher, said her kids thrived during the initial months at home and that she felt equipped to continue. Another parent called homeschooling a gift that let their family slow down and be present for one another and their community. A third parent realized her children didn’t need eight hours in a classroom to get a quality education.

In other words, parents we surveyed said that homeschooling during the pandemic was an unplanned trial to homeschool. Those who said they perceived positive benefits continued to homeschool.

Similar motivations, different journeys

Researchers often refer to push or pull factors to describe how families make homeschooling decisions. Push factors explain why families leave public education for homeschooling. These include a lack of safety or bad experiences at school, or a school that cannot meet a child’s particular needs.

Pull factors are the reasons why families are drawn to homeschooling for its own sake. They include flexibility with school hours, a closer relationship with family and a customized, educational environment.

In our study, parents who were homeschooling before the pandemic began and those who began homeschooling during the pandemic had similar motivations to homeschool.

COVID-19 health concerns were largely dismissed by both groups. More than 60% of the parents from both groups indicated they did not believe that COVID-19-related health issues, such as masking requirements and vaccination mandates, affected their choice to homeschool or continue homeschooling.

Time matters more than money

Our survey results demonstrated that there was a stronger relationship between flexibility in work schedule and motivation to homeschool than there was with family income and motivation to homeschool. In other words, families who had flexibility in their schedule to find the time to teach their own were especially likely to homeschool.

For example, self-employed and stay-at-home parents were more likely to continue homeschooling their kids than those working full time. Specifically, parents who worked outside the home less than 10 hours per week were far more likely than parents who work full time to want to homeschool because of their child’s specific needs.

These findings challenge the idea that homeschooling is primarily a path for wealthy families. In this sample, the families who homeschooled weren’t necessarily the ones with the highest incomes. They were the ones whose work lives gave them the time.

Why policy keeps missing the mark

To be clear, there are many reasons families homeschool, but our research indicates that the families in our study made a thoughtful and informed decision to homeschool.

If school districts are relying upon children returning to enroll in public schools when they were previously homeschooled, they may be misjudging the situation. It seems that some families intend to continue homeschooling for the long term. Our research indicates that the pandemic did not necessarily produce a surge in interest in homeschooling, as much as it revealed an existing level of demand – in some cases.

Understanding the reasons behind these demands could provide legislators and educators with a greater opportunity to develop regulations and practices that are consistent with how families are making educational choices.

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. The lasting appeal of homeschooling: What motivated families to continue after schools reopened post-pandemic – https://theconversation.com/the-lasting-appeal-of-homeschooling-what-motivated-families-to-continue-after-schools-reopened-post-pandemic-280118

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Gretchen E. Ely, Professor of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)

A 35-year-old Kentucky woman was arrested in late 2025, accused of taking abortion pills that she ordered online.

The gestational age and status of the pregnancy is unknown. But Kentucky, like the majority of Southern states that contain Appalachian counties, has a complete abortion ban.

Mifepristone is a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for self-administered abortion care through 10 weeks’ gestation, and research suggests it is safe and effective up to 16 weeks. Mifepristone can still be ordered into states with abortion bans after the Supreme Court weighed in on the matter on May 4, 2026.

Abortion is illegal in Kentucky, however, and the police viewed the woman’s actions as criminal. A grand jury supported bringing charges, including fetal homicide, “abuse of a corpse” and tampering with physical evidence. Her distressed mugshot was plastered all over regional news sites.

As a social work researcher who studies access to reproductive healthcare in underserved Appalachian communities, I have worked with clients in similar circumstances. I have observed that many decisions to end pregnancies are motivated by intense barriers to accessing healthcare – not by criminal intent.

It can be extremely difficult for women in this region to get healthcare, and these access burdens affect quality of life in the region. For example, research suggests that Appalachian women are more likely to die at younger ages when compared to women living in other regions of the United States.

Here are six factors I consider when a case like this appears in the news.

1. Abortion bans do not stop abortion

Data clearly shows that outlawing abortion care does not stop abortions from happening.

According to data from the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project, U.S. abortion rates have actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal abortion protections.

What state abortion bans do is change how people try to get care.

2. Abortion bans isolate patients from doctors

For people living in most of rural Appalachia, brick-and-mortar abortion facilities are currently only available in another state, often a great distance away.

The only way many people can get care, then, is to order pills and self-manage their own abortion.

When someone orders abortion pills without medical consultation, however, there is more room for error in assessing relevant medical information, such as how far along their pregnancy is. When abortion care is legal and accessible, like other forms of healthcare, such estimates are made in consultation with a health provider.

Multiple clinics, community groups and pharmacies will send abortion pills to Kentucky for self-managing abortions up to about 13 weeks into pregnancy, according to the abortion access resource Plan C. These places may offer medical support, peer support or no additional support at all.

Patients who do involve a telehealth provider report satisfaction with that experience.

Yet patients in abortion-ban states may avoid using sites that are connected to support services because they fear being discovered and prosecuted. Abortion bans may therefore compel patients to make critical reproductive health decisions without consulting an expert.

This may have occurred in the Kentucky case, according to what the law enforcement officers reported to the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper.

3. Ending Roe worsened healthcare deserts

Another factor to consider is how abortion bans contribute to existing healthcare deserts in rural Appalachian communities.

Even before the repeal of Roe, people living in Appalachian communities were not getting adequate healthcare. Communities in central and southern Appalachia face significant health disparities: These regions have higher illness and death rates and increased risk of cancer and diabetes compared to non-Appalachian areas of the United States.

In part, that has to do with inadequate healthcare infrastructure endemic in rural parts of the country. Geographic isolation, limited financial incentives and lack of infrastructure decrease the number of available health providers, meaning that only about 9% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas.

Appalachia has lost regional obstetric services in recent years and seen numerous hospital closures, further discouraging providers from working there. One study found that of 53 rural hospitals that closed between 2005 and 2016, 66% of them were in Southern states, 21% in Appalachia.

This has reduced access to specialty care, including reproductive healthcare.

Abortion bans have compounded all these problems. They make it difficult, if not impossible, for providers to practice within established standards of care when treating conditions such as miscarriage, which can discourage ER physicians and OB-GYNs from remaining in red states.

The shortage of medical professionals makes it increasingly challenging to obtain reproductive healthcare in the region – except by mail.

4. Poverty influences reproductive decisions

Money is another important factor in people’s reproductive choices.

Research indicates that financial distress is a main reason that people seek abortions. Those who are denied abortion access are more likely to be in poverty four years after they give birth than those who were able to access it.

Appalachia’s history of resource extraction has left it impoverished. In Central Appalachia – in Kentucky – up to 21% of residents live in poverty.

The median household income in adjusted 2023 dollars in Wolfe County, Kentucky, where the woman was arrested, is just over US$29,000, compared to about $79,000 in the rest of the country. It costs approximately $232,000 to raise a child in Kentucky from birth to age 18, the mortgage broker LendingTree calculated in April 2026.

Facing the daunting cost of another mouth to feed, families confronting an unintended pregnancy may see abortion as a financial necessity. Appalachian residents in these circumstances are figuring out how to get the abortion care they need against steep odds.

5. In rural Appalachia, abortion can carry stigma

In rural Appalachian communities where most residents know each other, abortion and reproductive health stigma – some of which, research suggests, is rooted in religiosity – can present a significant barrier to care.

My own research has found that stigma may dissuade Appalachians from seeking healthcare and discussing sexual health topics with providers due to fear of judgment. Many Appalachians have reported to me their negative reproductive health visits with regional medical providers, including attempts to coerce patients into using or not using contraception.

Because abortion is stigmatized in Appalachian communities, healthcare workers may be inclined to inform police on their patients.

One news report indicates that in cases where abortions were reported to police, 39% of reports were made by health professionals and another 6% by social workers. In 412 cases of pregnancy criminalization analyzed by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, 264 involved information that had been disclosed in a medical setting.

That is what happened in the Kentucky case: People working in a clinic allegedly told the police that the woman had disclosed her abortion.

Abortion medication shipped directly to one’s home, by contrast, offers privacy.

The prosecutor eventually dismissed the homicide charge, because Kentucky law exempts pregnant people from being prosecuted for getting abortion care. But other charges were added, including concealing the birth of an infant. The woman may still be facing legal consequences.

6. Sex education is important – and lacking

One final factor I consider relevant in understanding this case is sex education – or rather, the lack of it in most Appalachian states.

Kentucky requires some sexual health education in public schools, but each county can dictate much of the content. Sex education in the state is not required to be comprehensive, and it must promote abstinence.

As NPR reported in 2023, there are parts of rural Appalachia without comprehensive sex education, where contraception is unaffordable and abortion is also banned. Those trying to provide better sex education have faced harassment and threats of violence.

When people do not receive the sexual health education needed to know their bodies and how they function, they are more vulnerable to negative health outcomes such as unintended pregnancy. And they may not know their bodies well enough to know how long they’ve been pregnant when they make reproductive health choices.

Bad policies, impossible situations

All of the factors listed above could potentially affect people in any community. But rural Appalachian communities are disproportionately affected by a confluence of these factors.

In my analysis, the Kentucky case elucidates how poor health infrastructure and bad health policies – such as abortion bans – place one barrier after another in front of people who are just trying to do the best they can to cope with an unintended pregnancy.

This story was produced in collaboration with Rewire News Group, an independent newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive health in the United States.

Gretchen E. Ely has previously received funding for her research from the Society of Family Planning.

– ref. In rural Appalachia, abortion pill offers reproductive choice and privacy − but police may see a crime – https://theconversation.com/in-rural-appalachia-abortion-pill-offers-reproductive-choice-and-privacy-but-police-may-see-a-crime-279493