Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Laura E. Alexander, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha

As Christian clergy across the United States participate in ongoing protests against harsh immigration enforcement actions and further funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many are still pondering the words of Rob Hirschfeld. On Jan. 18, 2026, Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, encouraged clergy in his diocese to “prepare for a new era of martyrdom” and put their wills and affairs in order.

He asserted that “it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

Hirschfeld’s words attracted a lot of attention, with clergy generally responding positively, though at least one priest argued that he “did not sign up to be a martyr” and had a family and church relying on him.

Other clergy have willingly faced arrest for their advocacy on behalf of immigrants, seeing it as a moral calling. Rev. Karen Larson was arrested while protesting at the Minneapolis airport. She stated that when people are being separated from their families and taken to unknown detention centers, “this is our call” to protest on their behalf.

As a scholar of religious ethics, I am interested in how Christian clergy and thinkers consider personal risk when they feel called to engage in social action.

Ethics of risk

There are many examples of Christian leaders who have taken on risks out of a religious and moral obligation to provide spiritual care for people in need or advocate for oppressed communities.

Most data on the risks that clergy face in their roles as religious leaders comes from studies of religious leaders in institutional settings, such as hospitals or prisons.

Scholarship on clergy and chaplains in medical settings points to a professional obligation to take on risks. Similar to medical providers who often see risking exposure to infection as part of their professional responsibility, many clergy and chaplains in medical settings understand their vocation to include such a risk.

Questions about professional risks became particularly acute during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when researchers were uncertain exactly how the disease was spread and caregivers feared they might acquire HIV through their bedside work.

In her memoir about chaplaincy with HIV patients, Audrey Elisa Kerr notes that Riverside Church in New York continued to organize funerals, ministries and support groups for HIV/AIDS patients despite “terror” in the wider community about contagion.

As a chaplain herself, Kerr says this story of “radical hospitality” inspired her to set aside her own fears and embrace her professional role caring for people who were ill and dying.

Priests and nuns of the Catholic Church who cared for HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s risked both the fear of contagion and the disapproval of their bishops and communities, since many of the people they cared for were men who had sex with men.

Some felt, however, that they must care for those at the margins as part of their role in the church or their monastic order. Sister Carol of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis felt that it was simply her moral duty as a sister to “go where she was needed,” despite potential risk.

Examination of the ethical obligations of chaplains and clergy ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic when at least some priest, pastors and hospital chaplains felt an obligation to continue visiting patients for spiritual care.

In a reflection from 2020, Rev. David Hottinger, then working at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, noted that chaplains “felt privileged” to use their professional skills, even though they took on extra risk because they did not always have access to adequate protective equipment.

Risks in other institutional settings are not such a matter of life and death. Because of their professional preaching function, however, clergy in church settings do accept the risk of alienating church members when they feel religiously called to speak about social issues. Rev. Teri McDowell Ott has written about taking risks when discussing LGBTQ+ inclusion and starting a prison ministry.

Risk-taking during social protest

For many clergy, religious and ethical obligations extend beyond their work in institutions like churches and hospitals and include their witness in public life.

Many feel an obligation to preach on issues of moral importance, even topics that are considered controversial and might elicit strong disagreement. It is common for priests and pastors in conservative churches to include messages against legalized abortion in their sermons.

Tom Ascol of the Center for Baptist Leadership urged Baptist pastors to preach about abortion in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

Rev. Leah Schade, a Lutheran minister and scholar, has argued that since 2017, mainline pastors have preached more often on issues like racism, environmental justice or gun violence. Schade says pastors are inspired to speak more bluntly about social issues because of their religious concern for people who are at risk of harm from injustice or government policies.

Some clergy view their moral obligations as going beyond preaching and leading them to on-the-ground advocacy and protest. Rev. Brandy Daniels of the Disciples of Christ denomination examines these obligations in an article on her participation in a group of interfaith clergy in Portland, Oregon. The group was convened by a local rabbi and supported protesters for racial justice in Portland in 2017. In Daniels’ analysis, clergy took on the risk of staying in the middle of protests and facing a violent police response in order to “bear moral witness,” something they were both empowered and obligated to do as religious leaders.

Risking their lives

There are more extreme cases in which clergy who challenged government leaders or policies were killed for their words and actions of protest.

In a well-known historical example, Bishop Oscar Romero, canonized as a martyred saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2018, was assassinated in 1980 after speaking out against human rights violations against poor and Indigenous communities committed by the government of El Salvador. Romero viewed himself, in his priestly role, as a representative of God who was obliged to “give voice to the voiceless.”

During recent protests against ICE in Minneapolis and elsewhere, many clergy risked arrest and bodily harm. Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Metropolitan Community Church pastor, who says that ICE agents in Minneapolis pointed a gun in his face and handcuffed him as he tried to help a woman they were questioning, said, “It’s in my DNA; I have to speak up for marginalized people.”

On Jan. 23, 2026, over 100 clergy were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as they protested and prayed against ICE actions. Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard said that she and others accepted being arrested as a way of demonstrating public support for migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.

In Chicago, ministers have been hit with projectiles and violently arrested. Presbyterian pastor David Black was shot in the head with a pepper spray projectile while protesting outside an immigration detention center in October 2025.

The clergy have told reporters that they feel a particular call to be out in public and to protect and support their vulnerable neighbors against ICE raids, at a time when families are afraid to go to school or work and U.S. citizens have been swept up in enforcement tactics as well.

As I see it, for these and many Christian clergy and ethicists, the call to ministry includes an obligation to express their values of care for vulnerable neighbors precisely through a public willingness to accept personal risk.

Laura E. Alexander receives funding from the Mellon Foundation for research on immigration and religion and was previously a fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. She is independently affiliated with the Nebraska Alliance for Thriving Communities.

– ref. Why Christian clergy see risk as part of their moral calling – https://theconversation.com/why-christian-clergy-see-risk-as-part-of-their-moral-calling-274820

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Dan Kennedy, Professor of Journalism, Northeastern University

The Washington Post’s evisceration at the hands of its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn’t have to happen.

Following months of speculation, the Post cut at least 300 of its 800 journalists on Feb. 4, 2026, drastically reducing its international, local and sports coverage and eliminating its photo department and stand-alone book review section. The downsizing followed several decisions by Bezos that drove away hundreds of thousands of subscribers, from killing the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election to announcing that the editorial pages would henceforth be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets.”

But though those moves inflicted considerable damage, the paper had been floundering ever since Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when Bezos proudly added the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to its nameplate and the paper achieved both growth and profitability.

While its principal rival, The New York Times, successfully pivoted by rolling out ancillary products such as games, a cooking app and a consumer guide, the Post lost momentum – and was then pushed off a cliff as Bezos, in my view, started placing a higher value on peace with Trump than on making sure that democracy didn’t die in darkness.

I’m a journalism professor and the author of three books about the future of news. I tracked Bezos’ stewardship of the Post during better times in my 2018 book, “The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century.” And I’ve been watching in horror over the past several years as he’s dismantled much of what he built.

The Times, as the nation’s leading newspaper, is unique, and the extent to which other publishers can learn from its example is limited. But if Bezos ever decides he wants to take journalism seriously again, then he might take a look at a handful of large regional papers that have charted a route to sustainability against the strong headwinds that continue to buffet the news business.

5 good examples

Perhaps the most important difference between these papers and the Post – and the hundreds of other shrinking media outlets owned by corporate chains and hedge funds – is that they are rooted in the communities they cover. Whether owned by wealthy people or run by nonprofits, they place service to their city and region above extracting the last smidgen of revenue they can squeeze out.

Although I could add a few to this list, I am mentioning five large regional newspapers as examples of how it’s possible to succeed despite the long-term decline in the economics of journalism.

These papers have an array of ownership models.

The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, both for-profits, were bought in recent years by the billionaire owners of sports teams.

The Seattle Times, another for-profit, has belonged to the same family since 1896.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was acquired by a billionaire and donated to a nonprofit foundation in 2016, making it a leading example of a hybrid for-profit and nonprofit model.

The Salt Lake Tribune, which a billionaire bought from the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, was converted to a pure nonprofit – the first such paper to undergo such a transition.

Also known as major metropolitan dailies, these papers are all smaller than they were during the heyday of the 1970s and ’80s. Although the for-profit papers are privately owned and do not publish financial results, I’ve learned through years of reporting that the generous profit margins that once characterized newspapers have all but disappeared. Still, these papers have maintained substantial staffs and are their regions’ leading, though not sole, news providers.

Common themes

It’s hard to identify specific reasons why these papers have succeeded, but a few themes emerge.

The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, for instance, have both expanded into other geographic areas. The Globe has moved into Rhode Island and New Hampshire – with more to come in 2026.

Similarly, the Strib, as The Minnesota Star Tribune is known, now covers news across Minnesota, well beyond its base in the Twin Cities.

The Globe has also balanced experimentation with attention to the basics.

Not long after John and Linda Henry bought the Globe in 2013, they started a separate digital publication called Crux, which covered the Catholic Church. It failed to attract advertisers, and the Globe spun it off; Crux continues under different ownership.

Meanwhile, another Globe-owned startup, Stat, which covers health and medicine, grew into a successful venture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As for the basics, the Globe charges a premium for its journalism – as much as $36 a month for a digital-only subscription. And though paid digital circulation has stalled over the past year at about 260,000, that’s considerably more than most papers in its weight class.

The Star Tribune, owned by sports mogul Glen Taylor, unveiled a new, paywall-free breaking-news blog in the midst of the sometimes deadly immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The paper also offers unlimited gift links, so that paid subscribers can share stories with others, as well as a family subscription plan.
And it has a nonprofit fund to which donors can make tax-deductible contributions to support the paper’s journalism.

By the way, the idea of setting up a separate nonprofit arm was pioneered by The Seattle Times, although it has become increasingly common.

The Seattle Times recently handed off management of the paper to Ryan Blethen, who represents the fifth generation of his family to serve as publisher. In contrast to formerly family-owned papers such as the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, and The Des Moines Register, whose large families forced their sale two generations ago, The Seattle Times has actually become more independent: In 2024, the Times bought out Chatham Asset Management, a private equity firm that had controlled 49.5% of the paper.

Chatham also owns the McClatchy chain of newspapers, which includes well-known dailies such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.

Nonprofit ownership

In addition to the for-profit model, two other ownership structures have shown promise.

In 2016, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated The Philadelphia Inquirer, which he and a partner had bought just two years earlier, to a nonprofit that was renamed the Lenfest Institute following his death in 2018.

The Inquirer itself is a for-profit public benefit corporation, a designation that eases the standard corporate requirement that it maximize earnings, while the nonprofit helps support journalism at the Inquirer and other news organizations.

The paper has thrived under the new arrangement, with the publisher, Elizabeth Hughes, writing recently that the model could be used to revive the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on the opposite end of Pennsylvania.

The Post-Gazette’s owners, citing mounting losses, have announced that the paper will shut down in May.

And though The Salt Lake Tribune is the first – and, still, the only – metro daily to embrace a pure nonprofit model, it stands as an intriguing idea that could be emulated elsewhere.

Billionaire owner Paul Huntsman converted the paper to a nonprofit in 2019 after buying it from Alden three years earlier. Executive editor Lauren Gustus said recently that the Tribune is expanding both the size of its news staff and its coverage area, and it’s dropping its paywall in favor of voluntary payments. That’s similar to how nonprofit public radio and television stations support themselves.

A poster boy for decline

The past two decades have not been kind to the newspaper business. More than 3,500 U.S. papers have closed in that period, according to the most recent State of Local News report from Northwestern University’s Medill School. By destroying The Washington Post, the very institution he had previously done so much to build up, Jeff Bezos has transformed himself into the poster boy for that decline.

Yet here and there, in communities across the country, newspapers are reinventing themselves.

There are no easy fixes. But perseverance, innovation and a relentless focus on serving the public are the keys to success, regardless of ownership structure or geography. Bezos could learn from these models.

Dan Kennedy is the co-leader of the What Works: The Future of Local News project at Northeastern University. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of CommonWealth Beacon, a digital news outlet that covers state politics and public policy in Massachusetts. Kennedy is also on the board of the Local Journalism Project, the nonprofit arm of The Provincetown Independent, which is organized as a for-profit public benefit corporation.

– ref. As Jeff Bezos dismantles The Washington Post, 5 regional papers chart a course for survival – https://theconversation.com/as-jeff-bezos-dismantles-the-washington-post-5-regional-papers-chart-a-course-for-survival-275289

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Susan H. Kamei, Adjunct Professor of History and Affiliated Faculty, USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Cultures, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

With a stroke of a presidential pen, the lives of Izumi Taniguchi, Minoru Tajii, Homei Iseyama and Peggy Yorita irreparably changed on Feb. 19, 1942. On that day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which set in motion their wartime incarceration along with other people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from their homes in parts of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.

To cope with their fear, anger and loss in the turbulent times, they would have to dig deep into their emotional reservoirs of resolve and ingenuity.

Without bringing charges against them or providing any evidence of disloyalty, the U.S. government detained legal Japanese immigrants and their American-born descendants in desolate inland locations during and after World War II, simply because of their ethnicity. Nearly 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated between 1942 and 1947, according to Duncan Ryȗken Williams, director of The Irei Project, which is compiling a comprehensive list of those detained. My grandparents, parents and their families were among them.

As I describe in my book “When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II,” they boarded livestock trucks and World War I-era trains guarded by armed U.S. soldiers for destinations that were not disclosed to them. They could only take what they could carry and what they had within themselves.

When the Japanese Americans arrived at temporary detention facilities, euphemistically called “assembly centers,” hastily constructed on fairgrounds, racetracks and other government property, they were shocked to be body-searched, fingerprinted and interrogated. Thousands discovered their living quarters were animal pens or horse stalls. The ones considered lucky were assigned to poorly built barracks. The barracks had only cots, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and pot belly stoves in the corners; the interiors lacked any partitions.

Immediately they scavenged wood from vegetable crates and construction debris they found nearby to create privacy within the barracks units and to make furniture and other household furnishings. Displaced from their livelihoods, education and social structure, with nothing to do, they also quickly organized a wide range of activities, including sports, as well as arts and crafts of all kinds. Their resourcefulness born out of necessity converged with the Japanese aesthetic to make functional items beautiful as they sought to make their temporary quarters more livable.

When the prisoners were transferred to long-term detention facilities run by the War Relocation Authority later in 1942, they brought with them what Delphine Hirasuna, an author and descendant of people who had been incarcerated during the war, calls the “art of gaman.” “Gaman” is a Japanese word meaning the dignity and grace to bear the seemingly unbearable. With this philosophy, they created objects of both utility and beauty.

Finding beauty in branches, rocks and shells

At the Gila River and Poston camps located on tribal land in the Mojave Desert, incarcerees found that desert wood could be carved, filed and polished to make partitions, household objects and works of art.

Armed soldiers guarded the barbed-wire perimeters from lookout towers, but as the war wore on, the incarcerees were allowed to venture beyond the camp fences. Izumi Taniguchi, then 16 years old from Contra Costa County, California, recalled getting permission to walk outside the Gila River camp boundaries to while away the time.

He remembered, that some people used the ironwood for sculpting. Minoru Tajii, then 18 years old from El Centro, California, held at the Poston camp, described ironwood as “an oil-rich wood, so when you polish it up it comes out very nice, so we go out and find that and bring it back.”

The Poston “sculptoring department” advertised in the camp newsletter “Poston Chronicle” on Jan. 20, 1943, that “anyone with ironwood wishing to learn how to make figures and notions may bring their materials to the department, 44-13-D, and work under the guidance of sculptoring teachers.”

Homei Iseyama, from Oakland, California, became known for the exquisite teapots, teacups, candy dishes and calligraphy inkwells he carved out of slate stones he found around the Topaz, Utah, camp. Born in 1890, he attended Waseda University in Tokyo before immigrating to the United States in 1914 with dreams of attending art school.

At the Tule Lake camp, located on an ancient lake bed, the incarcerees discovered thick veins of shells that provided material for making art and jewelry. Fusako “Peggy” Nishimura Yorita got very involved in making shell jewelry. As digging for shells became a popular and competitive pastime for the Tule Lake incarcerees, Yorita enlisted her two teenagers and friends to help dig waist-deep holes at sunrise and sift the sand with homemade wire sieves.

A 33-year-old single mother, Yorita sold her shell jewelry to make a little money. She also enjoyed the creative endeavor. She recalled: “I was just making new things all the time. And to me, it … was … a wonderful outlet.”

As the incarcerees were allowed to leave the camps, they were given $25 and a one-way bus or train ticket to wherever they were going to rebuild their lives. Many took with them their handcrafted objects, reminders of how they overcame the physical and mental harshness of their detention years.

When my mother entrusted to me the fragile small tansu chest that her father made for her in camp out of crate wood, she told me that her father had felt sorry for her that she didn’t have anyplace to store her belongings. To improve the appearance of the wood, my grandfather placed a hotplate on the pieces to deepen the grain. My mother appreciated the care he took to carve traditional Japanese scenes onto the panels with a pen knife. She said the chest represented to her the depth of her father’s love.

Eight decades after Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, researchers are delving into the traumatic intergenerational impact that the incarceration has had on the camp survivors and their descendants. Memorials such as The Irei Project seek to restore dignity to those who suffered unconstitutional injustices. On Feb. 19, known annually as the Day of Remembrance, Americans can honor them by appreciating their “art of gaman,” testaments to their resilient spirit as they found and created beauty in their wartime environments.

The Mellon Foundation has provided funding to the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, which is one of Susan Kamei’s academic affiliations. Duncan Ryuken Williams is the director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture. She is a researcher for The Irei Project and is a member and volunteer of the Japanese American National Museum.

– ref. Held captive in their own country during World War II, Japanese Americans used nature to cope with their unjustified imprisonment – https://theconversation.com/held-captive-in-their-own-country-during-world-war-ii-japanese-americans-used-nature-to-cope-with-their-unjustified-imprisonment-272989

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Melissa Chim, Scholarly Communications Librarian, Excelsior University

Ahh, Valentine’s Day: the perfect moment to tell your sweetheart how much you love them with a thoughtful card.

But what about people in your life you don’t like so much? Why is there no Hallmark card telling them to get lost?

The Victorians had just the thing: a cruel and mocking version of the traditional Valentine’s Day card. Later coined “vinegar valentines” by 21st-century art collectors and dealers, such cards were usually referred to as mock or mocking valentines during the Victorian era.

Such cards were meant to shock, offend and upset their recipients. Not surprisingly, as with real Valentine’s Day cards, senders often chose to remain anonymous.

Vinegar valentines are what we historians like to call ephemera, that is, materials that are usually not meant to last a long time.

It’s hard to imagine a recipient of a vinegar valentine wanting to keep it lovingly in a frame, and many have been lost to time. But luckily, some vinegar valentines have survived and have been preserved in the collections of many historical institutions, such as Brighton and Hove Museums and the New York Public Library.

One jab at obnoxious sales ladies reads:

“As you wait upon the women

With disgust upon your face

The way you snap and bark at them

One would think you owned the place”

There is even a card for the pretentious poet who pretends to make a living with his art:

“Behold this pale little poet

With a finger at forehead to show it

But the way he gets scads

Is by writing soap ads

But he wants nobody to know it!”

The anonymous nature of the vinegar valentine meant that anyone could be an unwitting recipient. Some cards could poke gentle fun, but others could have quite dangerous results.

In 1885, a resident in the U.K. city of Birmingham, William Chance, was charged with the attempted murder of his estranged wife after he received a vinegar valentine from her. He shot her in the neck, and she was sent to the hospital.

‘Pompous, vain and conceited’

But who could be disliked so much that they would receive a vinegar valentine?

The poor, old and ugly were convenient targets. Unmarried men and women might also receive a vicious rejection from potential partners.

A Feb. 9, 1877, article from the Newcastle Courant notes that “it is the pompous, the vain and conceited, the pretentious and ostentatious who are generally selected as butts for valentine wit.”

Sending such a valentine was a way for ordinary people to enforce social norms disguised as a joke. It was also a way to feel powerful over an already vulnerable person, even if the sender was vulnerable themselves.

Vinegar valentines emerged as a sour offshoot of the cultural ascendancy of Valentine’s Day itself. While rooted in an ancient Roman fertility ceremony, the day was turned into a celebration of love by the Victorians.

The first Valentine’s Day cards in the early 1800s were often made by hand. With the rise of industrialization, by the 1840s and 1850s most cards were produced in factories. These regular Valentine’s Day cards were often decorated with lace and romantic images.

An industry of insults

By the mid-1800s, both Britain and the United States entered into what one historian calls “Valentine’s mania.”

The earliest vinegar valentines were sheets of paper folded like a letter. And to add insult to injury, before the availability of prepaid postage, the recipient had to pay to receive their letter.

Many printers offered vinegar valentines alongside the more traditionally positive and ornate cards. Even the firm Raphael Tuck & Sons, “Publishers to Their Majesties the King and Queen of England,” joined the vinegar valentine craze.

Vinegar valentines made their way across the pond to the United States in the mid-1800s. Some American printers made their own vinegar valentines; others, such as A.S Jordan, imported them from Britain.

During the American Civil War, these cards became a medium to express anger and frustration. If you supported the Union, you could send the following message to an unlucky secessionist from the South:

“You are the man who chuckles when the news

Comes o’er the wires and tells of sad disaster,

Pirates on sea succeeding-burning ships and crews,

Rebels on land marauding, thicker, aye, and faster

You are the two faced villain, though not very bold,

Who would barter your country for might or for gold.”

Votes and valentines

As vinegar valentines continued to be produced throughout the early 1900s, a new target became very popular – the suffragette.

Women fighting for the right to vote were seen by their detractors as unfeminine, and vinegar valentines were a cheap and convenient medium to enforce gender roles. In such cards, suffragettes were usually depicted as ugly spinsters or abusive, lazy wives. One card warns, “A vote from me you will not get, I don’t want a preaching suffragette.” Similarly, another card says:

“You may think it fun poor Cupid to snub,

With the hand of a Suffragette.

But he’s cunning and smart, aye, there’s the rub,

Revenge is the trap he will set.”

There were even cards made for anti-suffragist women looking to secure a husband. One card plaintively proclaims, “In these wild days of suffragette drays, I’m sure you’d ne’er overlook a girl who can’t be militant, but simply loves to cook.”

There were also pro-suffrage Valentine’s Day cards. One card defiantly asks, “And you think you can keep women silent politically? It can’t be did!”

Cupid as a troll

Vinegar valentines continued to be popular through the Golden Age of picture postcards in the early 1900s. They declined in popularity after World War I. This may be due to a decline in card giving overall, or a cultural shift away from “lowbrow” humor. But they never fully went away.

The spirit of the vinegar valentine saw a second revival in the 1950s with the rise of the comic postcard.

And the effects of vinegar valentines can still be seen, and felt, today. Anonymous internet trolls keep up the sniping spirit so prevalent in the Victorian era. Today’s vinegar valentines are extremely online. They are just as spiteful, but the difference is they are emphatically not restricted to one particular day in February.

Melissa Chim 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. Valentine’s Day cards too sugary sweet for you? Return to the 19th-century custom of the spicy ‘vinegar valentine’ – https://theconversation.com/valentines-day-cards-too-sugary-sweet-for-you-return-to-the-19th-century-custom-of-the-spicy-vinegar-valentine-273995

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Md S Hossain, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington

Globally, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced each year, and less than 10% is recycled. Much of the rest ends up burned, buried or drifting through waterways, a problem that’s only getting worse.

As a civil engineer, I started asking a simple question: Instead of throwing used plastic away, what if we could build something useful with it?

That question led to a technology that mixes small amounts of recycled plastic with asphalt – the black, sticky material used to make roads and parking lots. The result is a stronger road that lasts longer and keeps some used plastic out of the environment.

You can see these roads on my university’s campus at the University of Texas at Arlington, where my team has paved test sections in parking lots. Perhaps more importantly for testing this technology at scale, we have constructed a one-mile section of plastic-infused road in Rockwall, Texas, a city near Dallas. We’ve gotten interest from more cities in and outside Texas as well.

My goal is to take one problem – plastic pollution – and use it to fix another: deteriorating roads.

Where the idea came from

I grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Bangladesh, near a large dump site. As a child, I noticed that people living closest to the piles of waste were often sick, while those farther away were healthier.

At the time, I didn’t know the science behind it – I just saw neighbors having to choose between buying medicine and buying dinner. That memory left a long-lasting impact on me.

Years later, when I became an engineer, I learned that poor waste management doesn’t just harm the environment – it harms people. That realization became the foundation of my work.

How plastic roads work

Traditional asphalt is made from a mix of stones, sand and a petroleum-based binder called bitumen, which holds everything together. In my research team’s process, we replace a small part of that bitumen – about 8% to 10% – with melted plastic from everyday items, such single-use plastic bags and plastic bottles. For our plastic road construction project near Dallas, we used 4.5 tons of plastic waste for nearly a mile of a one-lane road.

We first clean the plastic, then shred it into small flakes. Finally, we mix it into the asphalt at high temperatures. These steps ensure that it melts completely and bonds tightly, leaving no loose plastic behind.

This process is like adding rebar to concrete: The plastic adds flexibility and strength. Roads with this mix can better handle extreme temperatures and heavy traffic. In hot places, that means fewer cracks and potholes.

During an extreme heat wave in April 2024, plastic road constructed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, showed no visible signs of distress or cracks, whereas many roads in Bangladesh had visible cracks and distress during the same period.

It also reduces the demand for new petroleum-based materials, since we’re reusing recycled plastic that already exists. Plastic road replaces bitumen, an already petroleum-based ingredient in the road, with waste.

The plastic waste problem

Plastic waste has grown dramatically over the past several decades. In the U.S., plastic waste has increased every year since the 1960s, with the steepest rise between 1980 and 2000.

In 2018 alone, landfills received nearly 27 million tons of plastic, making up 18.5% of all municipal solid waste nationwide. That’s a staggering amount of material sitting unused.

Plastic-infused asphalt can also save money. Because it lasts longer and resists cracking, cities may spend less on repairs and maintenance. In Rockwall, for example, early estimates suggest these roads could extend the pavement’s life by several years.

Under extreme heat, bitumen can melt. During a performance evaluation of a plastic road test section in Bangladesh, we found that adding plastic to the mix increases the road’s heat resistance. These results are especially helpful for states like Texas that deal with extreme heat over the summer. For our sites in UTA’s parking lot and in Rockwall, the pavement has so far stayed intact on days when temperatures surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Overcoming challenges

But there are still challenges. Scaling up production requires a consistent supply of clean, sorted plastic, which not all cities have the infrastructure to provide. Some types of plastic can’t be safely melted or may release harmful fumes if not processed correctly. We’re studying these issues closely to make sure the process is safe.

There are also questions about what happens when plastic roads reach the end of their life. Could they release microplastics – tiny plastic fragments – as they wear down? Early research suggests the risk is low because the plastic is bound within the asphalt, but we’re continuing to monitor it.

My own lab studies show very minimal microplastic release, and a 2024 study found that the release of microplastics from recycled plastic-asphalt was estimated to be a thousand times less than the release of rubber particles from worn tires.

Eventually, we may need to come up with alternative materials for these roads if plastic waste begins to decline. But in the meantime, this type of waste is still readily available.

Building toward a sustainable future

Our next steps involve expanding this technology to more regions, testing different types of plastic blends and ensuring that every road built this way is durable, affordable and environmentally safe.

Right now, we are working on testing and implementing plastic roads in cities beyond Texas and even in other countries. We also have filed for a patent for the technology and in the long term plan to eventually commercialize it.

When I see plastic roads being built in Bangladesh – sometimes not far from where I grew up – I think back to the people who lived near those dump sites. This work isn’t just about roads or recycling. It’s about dignity and keeping at least some waste away from the places where people live.

Md S Hossain is listed under a patent filed for plastic-infused asphalt.

– ref. Infusing asphalt with plastic could help roads last longer and resist cracking under heat – https://theconversation.com/infusing-asphalt-with-plastic-could-help-roads-last-longer-and-resist-cracking-under-heat-264156

Source: The Conversation – USA – By David Joffe, Associate Professor of Physics, Kennesaw State University

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

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Can we generate a way to interact with dark matter with current technology? – Leonardo S., age 13, Guanajuato, Mexico

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That’s a great question. It’s one of the most difficult and fascinating problems right now in both astronomy and physics, because while scientists know that the elusive substance called dark matter makes up the majority of all matter in the universe, we’ve never actually observed it directly. Dark matter is so difficult to interact with because it’s “dark,” which means it doesn’t interact directly with light in any way.

I’m a physicist, and scientists like me observe the world around us mainly by looking for signals from different wavelengths of light. So no matter what type of technology scientists use, they run into the same issue in the hunt for dark matter.

It’s not completely impossible to interact with dark matter, though, because it can interact with ordinary matter in other ways that don’t involve light. But those interactions are generally very weak. What we call dark matter is really anything that we can see only through these weaker interactions, especially gravity.

How we know dark matter exists

One way that dark matter can interact with ordinary matter is through gravity. In fact, gravity is the main reason scientists even think dark matter exists at all.

For decades, scientists have been observing how galaxies spin and move throughout the universe. Gravity acts on stars and galaxies, in the same way it keeps you from floating off into space. Heavier objects have a stronger gravitational pull. At these huge scales, researchers have spotted some unexpected quirks that gravity alone can’t explain.

For example, almost 100 years ago, a Swiss astronomer named Fritz Zwicky studied a cluster of galaxies called the Coma Cluster. He noticed the galaxies inside it were moving very fast, so much so that they should have flown apart many millions of years ago.

The only way the cluster could have stayed together for so long is if there was much more matter holding it together with gravity than the telescope could see. This extra matter necessary to hold the galaxies together became known as dark matter.

About 40 years after Zwicky, an American astronomer named Vera Rubin looked at the individual stars moving around the centers of spiral galaxies as they rotated. She saw that the stars at the outside edges of the spiral were moving much faster than you’d expect if only the gravity from the stars you could see was keeping them from flying off into intergalactic space.

Just as with the galaxies moving around the cluster, the motion of the stars around the edges of the galaxies could be best explained if there was much more matter in the galaxies than what we could see.

More recently, scientists have combined optical telescopes that observe visible light with X-ray telescopes. Optical telescopes can take pictures of galaxies as they move and rotate. Sometimes, galaxies in these images are distorted or magnified by gravity coming from large masses in front of them. This phenomenon is called gravitational lensing, which is when the gravity around a very heavy object is so strong that it bends the light passing by it, acting like a lens.

X-ray telescopes, on the other hand, can see the clusters of hot gases that surround galaxies. By combining these two telescopes, astronomers can see galaxies as well as the gases surrounding them – all the observable matter. Then, they can compare these images with the optical results. If there’s more gravitational lensing seen than what could be caused by the gas, there must be more mass hiding somewhere and causing the lensing.

How we might be able to see dark matter

Unfortunately, all this tells astronomers only that dark matter must be there, not what it really is. The evidence for dark matter is all based on how it interacts with gravity at very large scales. It’s still “dark” to scientists in the sense that it hasn’t interacted directly with any measurement devices.

The good news is that light and gravity aren’t the only forces in the universe. A force called the weak force might be able to interact directly with dark matter and give scientists a direct signal to observe. Most of the ideas about what the dark matter might be include the possibility of it interacting through the weak force, converting energy into signals that are visible.

The weak force is not observable at normal scales of distance. But for objects the size of an atom’s nucleus or smaller, it can change one type of subatomic particle into another. The weak force can also transfer energy and momentum at very short distances – this is the main effect scientists hope to observe with dark matter. These processes might be extremely rare, but in theory they should be possible to see.

Most experiments looking to see dark matter directly are searching for signals of rare weak interactions in an underground detector, or for gamma rays that can be seen in a special gamma-ray telescope.

In either case, a signal from dark matter would likely be very faint, resulting from an interaction that can’t be explained any other way, or a signal that doesn’t seem to have any other possible source. Even if the effect is faint, it might still be possible to observe, and any such signal would be an exciting step forward in being able to see the dark matter more directly.

In the end, it may be a combination of signals from experiments deep underground, in particle colliders, and different types of telescopes that finally lets scientists see dark matter more directly. Whichever technology ends up being successful, hopefully sometime soon the matter that makes up our universe will be a little less dark.

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

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

David Joffe receives funding from NASA through a grant from the Georgia Space Grant Consortium.

– ref. How do scientists hunt for dark matter? A physicist explains why the mysterious substance is so hard to find – https://theconversation.com/how-do-scientists-hunt-for-dark-matter-a-physicist-explains-why-the-mysterious-substance-is-so-hard-to-find-269876

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kevin Omland, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

We humans have long viewed ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. People label other species as “primitive” or “ancient” and use terms like “higher” and “lower” animals.

This anthropocentric perspective was entrenched in 1866, when German scientist Ernst Haeckel drew one of the first trees of life. He placed “Man,” clearly labeled, at the top. This illustration helped establish the popular view that we are the ultimate goal of evolution.

Modern evolutionary biology and genomics debunk that flawed perspective, showing there is no hierarchy in evolution. All species alive today, from chimpanzees to bacteria, are cousins that each have equally long lineages, rather than ancestors or descendants.

Unfortunately, these outdated notions remain prevalent in scientific journals and science journalism. In my new book, “Understanding the Tree of Life,” I explore why it is fundamentally misleading to view any current species as primitive, ancient or simple. As an evolutionary biologist, I offer an alternative view that emphasizes evolution’s complex, nonhierarchical, interconnected history.

Not primitive, just different

Egg-laying mammals, the monotremes, are frequently labeled the most “primitive” living mammals. This category includes the platypus and four species of echidnas. Indeed, their egg-laying is an ancient characteristic shared with reptiles.

But platypuses also have many unique recent adaptations that make them well suited to their lifestyle: They have webbed feet for swimming and a bill with specialized electroreceptors that detect prey in the mud. Males have spurs with venom that they can use to defend themselves against rivals. If you take a platypus’s view, they’re the pinnacle of evolution for their specific ecological niche.

Echidnas may seem primitive, especially because they lack a capability that humans have – giving birth to live young. Yet they possess many extraordinary traits that humans lack. Echidnas are known for their outer covering of protective spines. They also have powerful claws for digging, a sensitive beak and a long sticky tongue, all of which they use foraging for ants and termites. In a head-to-head competition foraging for prey in a termite mound, an echidna would easily outperform any human.

Other mammals native to Australia also turn up on lists of primitive mammals, such as many species of marsupials – pouched mammals, including kangaroos, koalas and wombats. These species generally give birth to small, minimally developed young that move to the mother’s pouch where they complete development. Pouch development may seem inferior to the human way, but it does have advantages. For example, kangaroos can simultaneously nurture young at three stages of development.

Evolutionary tree appearance depends on focus

Marsupials such as opossums, or monotremes such as the platypus, are often shown at the bottom or left side of an evolutionary tree. However, that does not mean that they are older, more primitive or less evolved.

Evolutionary trees – what scientists call phylogenies – show cousin relationships. Just as your second or third cousin is no more primitive than you are, it is misleading to think of a koala or echidna as primitive because of where they are depicted on these trees.

When scientists and journalists choose which species to include in the evolutionary trees in their publications, it can influence how the public perceives these species. But species shown lower on the page are not “lower” on some evolutionary scale.

Rather, they are placed there because the focus of many of those trees is on placental mammals, such as humans, other primates, carnivores, rodents and so on. When the focus is on placental mammals, it makes sense to include one or two species of marsupials as comparisons for reference.

In contrast, in a tree focused on marsupials, one or two placental mammals could be included at the bottom of the page for comparison.

Why understanding the tree of life matters

Viewing humans as the goal of evolution leads to a misunderstanding of the entire evolutionary process. Since evolution is the conceptual foundation for all biology, this flawed perspective can hinder all biological and biomedical science.

Mastering a modern understanding of evolutionary trees is crucial to advances in fields ranging from animal behavior and physiology to conservation and biomedicine. For example, because rhesus monkeys are much more closely related to us than are capuchins, rhesus monkeys are generally better subjects for preliminary tests of human vaccines. Opossums, incorrectly considered to be primitive, are a great species for providing a broader framework for studies of neurobiology and aging because they are distantly related to us, not because they are lower or more ancestral.

Grasping the profound reality that humans are not the pinnacle of evolution, but one branch among many, is foundational for all modern biology. Understanding the tree of life is central to fully embracing the shared modern status of all animals, from platypuses to people.

Kevin Omland 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. No animal alive today is ‘primitive’ – why are so many still labeled that way? – https://theconversation.com/no-animal-alive-today-is-primitive-why-are-so-many-still-labeled-that-way-266208

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charles Edward Gehrke, Deputy Division Director of Wargame Design and Adjudication, US Naval War College

In the first weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a strange pattern emerged in Western media coverage. Headlines oscillated between confidence and confusion. Kyiv would fall within days, one story would claim, then another would argue that Ukraine was winning. Russian forces were described as incompetent, then as a terrifying existential threat to NATO.

Analysts spoke with certainty about strategy, morale and endgames, but often reversed themselves within weeks. To many news consumers, this felt like bias – either pro-Ukraine framing or anti-Russia narratives. Some commentators accused Western media outlets of cheerleading or propaganda.

But I’d argue that something more subtle was happening. The problem was not that journalists were biased. It was that journalism could not keep pace with the war’s informational structure. What looked like ideological bias was, more often, temporal lag.

I serve in the Navy as a war gamer. The most critical part of my job is identifying institutional failures. Trust is one of the most critical and, in this sense, the media is losing ground.

The gap between what people experience in real time and what journalism can responsibly publish has widened. This gap is partly where trust erodes. Social media collapses the distance between event, exposure and interpretation. Claims circulate before journalists can evaluate them.

This matters in my world because the modern battlefield is not just physical. Drone footage circulates instantly. Social media channels release claims in real time. Intelligence leaks surface before diplomats can respond.

These dynamics also matter for the public at large, which encounters fragments of reality, often through social media, long before any institution can responsibly absorb and respond to them.

Journalism, by contrast, is built for a slower world.

Slow journalism

At the core of their work, journalists observe events, filter signal from noise, and translate complexity into narrative. Their professional norms – editorial gatekeeping, standards for sourcing, verification of facts – are not bureaucratic relics. They are the mechanisms that produce coherence rather than chaos.

But these mechanisms evolved when information arrived more slowly and events unfolded sequentially. Verification could reasonably precede publication. Under those conditions, journalism excelled as a trusted intermediary between raw events and public understanding.

These conditions no longer exist.

Information now arrives continuously, often without clear provenance. Social media platforms amplify fragments of reality in real time, while verification remains necessarily slow. The key constraint is no longer access; it is tempo.

Granted, reporters often present accounts as events are occurring, whether on live broadcasts or through their own social media posts. Still, in this environment, journalism’s traditional strengths become sources of lag.

Caution delays response. Narrative coherence hardens fast. Corrections then feel like reversals rather than refinements.

Covering real-time events

The war in Ukraine has made this failure mode unusually visible. Modern warfare generates data faster than any institution can metabolize. Battlefield video and real-time casualty claims flood the system continuously.

For their part, journalists are forced to operate from an impossible position: expected to interpret events at the same speed they are livestreamed. And so journalists are forced sometimes to improvise.

Early coverage of the war leaned on simplified frames, including Russian incompetence, imminent victory and decisive turning points. They provided provisional stories generated to satisfy intense public demand for clarity.

As the war evolved, however, those stories collapsed.

This did not mean the original reporting was malicious. It meant the narrative update cycle lagged behind the underlying reality. What analysts experienced as iterative learning, audiences experienced as contradiction.

The acceleration trap

This forces journalism into a reactive posture. Verification trails amplification, meaning accurate reports often arrive after the audience has already formed a first impression.

This inverts journalism’s historical role. Audiences encounter raw claims first and journalism second. When the two diverge, journalism appears disconnected from reality as people experienced it.

Over time, this produces a structural shift in trust. Journalism is no longer perceived as the primary interpreter of events, but as one voice among many, arriving late. Speed becomes a proxy for relevance. Interpretation without immediacy is discounted.

Although partisan bias certainly exists, it is insufficient to explain the systemic incoherence Americans are witnessing.

Can journalism adapt?

Institutions optimized for one tempo rarely adapt cleanly to another. Journalism is now confronting the risk that its interpretive cycle no longer matches the speed of the world it is trying to explain.

Its future credibility will depend less on accusations of bias or even error than the question of whether it can reconcile rigor with speed, perhaps by trading the illusion of early certainty for the transparency of real-time doubt.

If it cannot, trust will continue to drain. An institution that evolved to help society see is falling behind what society is already watching.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of the Navy or the U.S. Naval War College.

Charles Edward Gehrke 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. Journalism may be too slow to remain credible once events are filtered through social media – https://theconversation.com/journalism-may-be-too-slow-to-remain-credible-once-events-are-filtered-through-social-media-273748

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kate Price, Associate Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College

The January 2026 release of additional files related to the Justice Department’s investigation of convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell has brought renewed attention to the late financier’s connections to the world’s rich and powerful.

However, the failure to redact identifying victim information and explicit photos has also brought unwanted attention to survivors. The lack of consideration for their welfare illustrates how legal proceedings can add to child sex trafficking victims’ existing trauma and burden instead of offering a stable path forward.

Some states have passed laws in recent years to protect child victims of sex trafficking. But at the same time, most states have passed laws that allow those same children to be arrested or prosecuted for prostitution. It’s a tug of war between advocates, law enforcement and policymakers to determine the best approach for keeping vulnerable children safe from pimps, predators and dangerous family members.

Often these intentions to “keep kids safe” end up harming the very children the laws are supposed to protect. This is done by identifying them as criminals and not victims.

As a sociologist and scholar who researches the commercial sexual exploitation of children, I believe Americans have to look at the many different ways states treat sexually exploited minors to fully understand this issue and the harm that is being done.

Retraumatizing victims

When approved in 2000, the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act established that children under 18 who experience commercial sexual exploitation are sex trafficking victims.

Criminally charging a child with prostitution, as most states allow, asserts they are willfully participating in the commercial sex trade, while identifying a minor as a sex trafficking victim recognizes they are not in this situation by choice.

Some states require minors to prove a third party forced, deceived or coerced them into prostitution to be considered a child sex trafficking victim. Their innocence, despite their age, is not automatically assumed. This approach risks retraumatizing victims by labeling and stigmatizing them as criminal, as voluntary participants in the commercial sex trade.

Examining these state statutes is important because these minors are more likely to interact with local law enforcement than federal agents. That’s because in the U.S. federalist system, states have more power than the national government to set rules regarding crime.

Arresting and prosecuting minors for prostitution

As of 2025, 15 states do not arrest and prosecute children for prostitution, while seven states allow a minor to be arrested but not prosecuted for this charge, according to my unpublished research. As a result, sexually exploited minors can be criminalized in 35 states for their maltreatment because they can be charged or prosecuted for prostitution.

These laws determine how courts identify commercially sexually exploited minors, as victims or criminals.

Safe harbor laws have been adopted by 31 states as a legal strategy to divert sex trafficked minors from the criminal legal system. These measures connect them to specialized services, including trauma-informed health care and safe housing. But safe harbor statutes do not guarantee that children will be protected from arrest or prosecution for prostitution.

For example, New York’s 2008 safe harbor law requires a child charged with prostitution to admit they participated in this crime. The child also has to explain why they shouldn’t be held liable for the charge.

Another common strategy adopted by some states, including Rhode Island, requires a minor to fulfill a specific “child sex trafficking victim” definition – such as proving force, fraud or coercion by a third party – to avoid being criminalized for prostitution. Yet mandating sexually exploited minors to meet such requirements places the burden of proof on the child.

Conversely, Massachusetts’ safe harbor law does not afford any protections to minors, allowing a child to be arrested and prosecuted for prostitution. State and local police collaborate with child protective services and are trained not to arrest sexually exploited minors. But some officials argue law enforcement needs the threat of criminal charges to pressure minors they see as “noncompliant” to accept services or leave trafficking situations.

This approach blurs the line between criminal legal mechanisms and social work. It positions police as “helpers” who expect trafficked youth to accept support or risk criminal punishment.

In sum, unlike federal law, which recognizes all sexually exploited minors as victims, some state authorities present minors with a choice: comply with law enforcement or prove their innocence.

The adultification of child victims

These demands that shift legal burdens to sexually exploited minors signal that law enforcement and legislators expect them to have the capacity to make mature and rational choices. Yet, neuroscience research indicates juveniles don’t have the same decision-making capacity as adults until their early to mid-20s.

Further, sexually exploited minors with trauma may appear as uncooperative in stressful situations. Those include being detained or arrested for prostitution.

By blaming sex trafficked minors for “making bad choices,” the criminal legal system treats commercial sexual exploitation victims as complicit. And this may lead to prostitution charges instead of support. Furthermore, focusing on a child’s “choices” does not address the financial, familial and traumatic adversities that make victims vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation in the first place.

Commercial sexual exploitation risk factors include complex post-traumatic stress disorder, low socioeconomic status, limited educational access and child sexual abuse prior to this exploitation. That includes exploitation from fraught family living situations where a parent, relative or caregiver sexually exploits a child.

Racial inequality in prostitution charges

Similarly, racial bias has deeply influenced trafficking legislation.

In 1910, Congress passed The Mann Act, also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act. This measure framed commercial sexual exploitation as a problem affecting only white women and girls, erasing the exploitation of people of color.

This pattern continues today. Black and brown children in the U.S. are more likely to be arrested and detained for prostitution than all other racial groups. Children who live in states with higher levels of structural economic inequality, which affects children of color at higher rates that white children, are at higher risk of being arrested and prosecuted for prostitution.

My research with Keith Bentele indicates that states with higher levels of structural economic inequality are less likely to adopt legislation protecting children from arrest and prosecution for prostitution.

Increasing compassion for victims

Without addressing these structural inequalities and the lack of a social safety net, sex trafficked children, particularly children of color and LGBTQ+ youth, are at risk of facing further marginalization and criminalization for prostitution.

One state has risen above the rest in recognizing and addressing these systemic barriers. Minnesota’s “No Wrong Door” framework utilizes a public health approach and is regarded as the gold standard of state-level commercial sexual exploitation legislation.

Protecting youth up to age 24 from prostitution charges, Minnesota offers housing and medical services to victims instead of criminal punishment. It also coordinates trauma-informed training for professionals, such as police and social workers.

An evaluation of this model indicates that it has successfully increased compassion for youth victims in the community, particularly among law enforcement.

Mallika Sunder, a student at Wellesley College and intern in its Wellesley Centers for Women, co-authored this article.

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

– ref. How the law can add to child sex trafficking victims’ existing trauma – https://theconversation.com/how-the-law-can-add-to-child-sex-trafficking-victims-existing-trauma-271922

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Joel Lisonbee, Senior Associate Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

Cattle auctions aren’t often all-night affairs. But in Texas Lake Country in June 2022, ranchers facing dwindling water supplies and dried out pastures amid a worsening drought sold off more than 4,000 animals in an auction that lasted nearly 24 hours – about 200 cows an hour.

It was the height of a drought that has gripped the Southern Plains for the past six years – a drought that is still holding on in much of the region in 2026.

The drought cost the agriculture industry across Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas an estimated US$23.6 billion in lost crops, higher feed costs and selling off cattle from 2020 through 2024 alone. As rangeland dried out, it also fueled devastating wildfires.

Historically, droughts of this magnitude happen in the Southern Plains about once a decade, but the severe droughts of this century have been lasting longer, leaving water supplies, native rangelands and farms with little time to recover before the next one hits.

Many cattle producers and rangelands were still recovering from a severe 2010-2015 drought when a flash drought hit western Texas in spring 2020, marking the beginning of the current multibillion-dollar, multiyear and multistate drought. Ample spring rainfall in 2025 and severe flooding in central Texas that year weren’t enough to end the drought, and a powerful winter storm in late January 2026 missed the driest parts of the region.

In a recent study with colleagues at the Southern Regional Climate Center and the National Integrated Drought Information System, we assessed the causes and damage from the ongoing drought in the Southern Plains.

We found three key reasons for the enduring drought and its damage: rising temperatures and a La Niña climate pattern; water supply shortages; and lingering economic impacts from the previous drought.

Weather and climate helped drive the drought

The Southern Plains is known to be a hot spot for rapid drought development, and the ongoing drought that started in 2020 is no exception.

Documented “flash droughts” – defined as periods of rapid drought onset or intensification of existing droughts – occurred at least five times in the region from 2020 to 2025. As global temperatures rise and climates warm, research warns that the frequency and severity of flash drought events will increase.

For the southern part of the Southern Plains, winter precipitation is closely linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, a climate pattern that affects weather around the world. Five of the past six years exhibited a La Niña pattern, which typically means the region sees winters that are warmer and drier than normal.

La Niña was likely the primary driver – although not the only driver – of the drought for Texas and southwest Oklahoma, and one of the reasons drought conditions have continued into 2026.

The Southern Plains have a long history with severe droughts. The Dust Bowl of the early 1930s may be the best-known example. But a history with drought doesn’t make it any easier to manage when crops and water supplies dry up.

Deeply rooted water shortages

The heat and dryness since 2020 have left many of the region’s rivers, reservoirs and even groundwater reserves well below average.

San Antonio’s reservoirs all reached record-low levels in 2024 and 2025, as did the Edwards Aquifer, which provides water for roughly 2.5 million people. They were still low as 2026 began. Surface water and groundwater resources across central and western Texas have been depleted to the point that even a few big storms can’t replenish them.

A few major rivers flow into the Southern Plains from other drought-affected regions. Consider the Rio Grande, which begins in Colorado and winds through New Mexico and along Texas’ southern border: Not only has the Lower Rio Grande valley in southern Texas missed out on needed precipitation this winter, so did the Rio Grande headwaters in southern Colorado.

Colorado is facing a snow drought in winter 2026, as is much of the western U.S. If it continues, there will be less snowmelt come summer to feed rivers, such as the Rio Grande, or fill reservoirs. In early February, the Elephant Butte, Amistad and Falcon reservoirs, along the Rio Grande, were only 11%, 34%, and 20% full, respectively.

Lingering economic impacts

Like water supplies, the economy doesn’t just recover when the rains return.

One of the reasons the current drought has been so costly is that parts of the region had not fully recovered from the 2010-2015 drought when the latest one began in 2020. With only a five-year break between droughts, the landscape behaved like someone with an already weakened immune system who caught a cold.

During the 2010-2015 drought, cattle producers in Texas sold off about 20% of the statewide herd as water became scarce and rangeland dried up. Rebuilding a herd after a drought is a slow process. Pasture recovery can take a year or more, and a newborn heifer will take two years to mature and produce her own first calf.

Cattle herds had still not returned to pre-2010 levels when the 2022 drought peak forced another mass sell-off. From 2020 through 2024, Texas’s herd size declined from 13.1 million to 12 million; Oklahoma’s declined from 5.3 million to 4.7 million; and Kansas’ declined from 6.5 million to 6.15 million.

Looking beyond livestock, a large percentage of the Southern Plains’ crops failed in 2022, the peak year of the drought. In Texas, 25% of the corn crop was planted but never harvested, and 45% of the soybean crop was similarly abandoned. A normal season would have yielded a $2.4 billion cotton crop in Texas, but 74% of that crop was abandoned, slashing its value to roughly $640 million.

Ending the Southern Plains drought

Is the end in sight? With La Niña fading in early 2026 and its opposite, El Niño, potentially on the horizon, there’s a chance for wetter conditions that could reduce the drought in the fall and winter months of 2026.

But the Southern Plains still have to get through spring and summer first. Ending a drought like this requires consistent precipitation over several months, and drought conditions are likely to get worse before they get better.

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. Sixth year of drought in Texas and Oklahoma leaves ranchers bracing for another harsh summer – https://theconversation.com/sixth-year-of-drought-in-texas-and-oklahoma-leaves-ranchers-bracing-for-another-harsh-summer-275219