Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Itay Ravid, Associate Professor of Law, Villanova University

Nearly one-third of U.S. children reported missing are Black, even though Black people constitute roughly 14% of the U.S. population.

To address one dimension of this problem, Pennsylvania and a few other states, including Alabama and Massachusetts, have in recent years proposed legislation to reform missing child alert systems. Not all missing children cases trigger an Amber Alert – the nationwide emergency alert system for missing children – but those that do receive greater public and media attention. These states suggest implementing an “Ebony Alert” that focuses on children of color.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Gina Curry introduced a bill “specifically tailored to finding missing Black and Brown youth” in June 2024 and reintroduced it in January 2025. It is currently sitting in the Children and Youth Committee.

Pennsylvania and the other states where these laws are pending are taking a cue from California, which started its statewide Ebony Alert program in January 2024. California’s system aims to guarantee that cases of missing Black youth are treated fairly by law enforcement agencies and the public is alerted in similar fashion and through the same venues offered under Amber Alerts.

I am a law professor who studies victimization and inequalities in the criminal legal system. In a recent legal paper, attorney Tanisha Brown and I examined how Ebony-like laws might save more Black children who go missing.

Our study focuses specifically on Black children, though we recognize that the disproportionate number of missing children from Native American and other marginalized communities also deserve attention and further inquiry.

The crisis of missing Black children

Our original data analysis suggests that the probability of Black children going missing is three times that of white children.

The May 2025 Minority and Missing Report – a collaborative effort among leading law enforcement and various civil society groups – also highlighted the disproportionate number of missing Black, American Indian and Alaska Native children.

These disparities extend beyond reporting rates for missing children.

Black children are also more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation than white children. Structural inequalities, such as poverty, housing instability and overrepresentation in the foster care system, compound their risks.

Amber’s role in the disparities

The Amber Alert system was adopted in the early 2000s. Amber stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. It is a powerful and comprehensive alert infrastructure that distributes information about a missing child through radio, television, text messages, highway signs, email notifications and major online platforms, including Google and Facebook.

Many of the kids who go missing are victims of crime – abducted from their neighborhoods, homes and schools, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and, in some tragic cases, killed. Amber Alerts mobilize communities to assist in the search process.

To issue an Amber Alert, law enforcement must determine that specific statutory conditions are met, including the age of the child, law enforcement’s belief in imminent danger of serious injury or death, and the sufficiency of existing information to assist in recovery. Crucially, children who are categorized as “runaways” are excluded from Amber eligibility.

Advocacy groups for missing children argue that for a host of reasons, including implicit and explicit racial bias, Black children who go missing are disproportionately labeled as runaways. This excludes them from the protections of the Amber system and reduces the likelihood of them being found.

Even when an Amber Alert is initiated, some data suggests that Black children are less likely to be recovered than white children.

States respond with Ebony Alerts

California’s Ebony Alert system ensures that all cases involving missing Black youth receive public notification comparable in scope and visibility to Amber Alerts. It offers different criteria for the initiation of the alerts. For example, an Ebony Alert may be issued when law enforcement determines that an individual went missing under “unexplained and suspicious circumstances.”

The Pennsylvania proposal generally follows California’s provisions, while stating that it is intended for “young people of color.”

These efforts publicly acknowledge and attempt to address the disproportionate impact of missing-child crises on Black communities. They also shine light on the limitations of formally colorblind frameworks like Amber, as Amber’s race-neutral design has, in practice, produced racially disparate outcomes – with potential life-or-death consequences.

Addressing Amber’s structural flaws

In order to fix the Amber Alert system in states without Ebony Alert legislation, we propose three reforms that would reduce flaws in its design.

1. A more holistic evaluation of missing child cases: Currently, all Amber factors must be present to initiate an alert. Our approach suggests that no single factor should stop an alert from being issued. Doing so will require law enforcement agents to approach each case with more complexity and nuance, including recognizing particular community needs.

2. A broader spectrum of “at risk” conditions: Law enforcement can issue alerts in cases beyond the most typical cases of “serious risk to bodily integrity or death.” This might include “unexplained and suspicious circumstances” or recognizing that the missing person might be subject to trafficking.

3. Shift the burden within law enforcement decision-making: To mitigate bias in alert initiation, we propose that law enforcement bear the burden of explaining why not to initiate an alert – instead of why to – when they cannot explain circumstances behind a child going missing.

Together, these reforms could significantly address existing problems within the Amber system itself.

Equal protection challenges

The design of Ebony Alert laws, however, raises a constitutional question: Can such laws withstand equal protection challenges?

Under current doctrine, Ebony Alert laws would likely be considered a racial classification subject to strict scrutiny, an almost impassable legal hurdle. The 2020 Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which the Supreme Court ruled that several race-conscious admission programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the equal protection clause, might have further challenged this type of legislation.

To pass strict scrutiny, laws must be narrowly tailored interventions that serve a compelling state interest.

As Brown and I argue, the interests and context of Ebony Alert laws differ meaningfully from those in the Students for Fair Admission case. Ebony is law-enforcement legislation aimed at protecting children who are victims of crime. Courts have long recognized that “safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor” is a compelling interest.

Ebony Alert laws also address documented racial disparities in the Amber system that undermine equal protection and public safety. According to case law, race-conscious measures may be deemed compelling when “essential to accomplishing criminal system objectives within a community served,” including maintaining trust and perceptions of fairness. These points are developed more fully in our paper.

To be sure, Ebony Alerts are not a panacea. As the Minority and Missing Report emphasizes, there are broader issues, such as inconsistent reporting protocols, inadequate training and strained relations between marginalized communities and police.

Nonetheless, Ebony Alert proposals invite a broader reckoning with how race-neutral systems can produce racially unequal outcomes. Carefully designed race-conscious remedies may be necessary to fulfill the criminal legal system’s most basic promise: protecting children’s lives.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Itay Ravid 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. Nearly 1 in 3 missing children in the US are Black, driving Pennsylvania and other states to propose ‘Ebony Alerts’ to ensure equal protection and public safety – https://theconversation.com/nearly-1-in-3-missing-children-in-the-us-are-black-driving-pennsylvania-and-other-states-to-propose-ebony-alerts-to-ensure-equal-protection-and-public-safety-275388

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Coalter G Lathrop, Senior Lecturing Fellow in International Law, Duke University

Americans have a reputation for being bad at world geography, and the current U.S. administration is no exception, particularly when it comes to correctly identifying what is – and is not – part of the United States of America.

President Donald Trump’s April 2025 executive order “unleashing America’s offshore critical minerals” provides an example. It purports to “unleash” seabed minerals both within and far outside U.S. jurisdiction.

The minerals on the U.S. seabed are America’s. The minerals on the international seabed are not “America’s.” The administration plans to authorize companies to mine in international areas, nonetheless.

I have studied the international agreements and customary rules governing the oceans since the Law of the Sea Convention entered into force in 1994. The Trump administration’s attempt to unilaterally exploit the seabed resources of the global commons will severely undermine part of the rules-based international order that the U.S. built and of which it has been the main beneficiary.

The scramble for critical minerals

The U.S. has been trying to secure access to critical minerals that are essential for modern technology. These materials include nickel, manganese and cobalt for large batteries and copper for the power grid. All can be found on land, but some can also be found at the bottom of the sea.

Of particular interest are polymetallic nodules – agglomerations, typically smaller than a potato, containing manganese and other metals and found in the silt of the deep ocean floor. An Australian mining executive described these nodules as “an EV battery in a rock.”

The Clarion Clipperton Zone, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, contains one of the highest concentrations of polymetallic nodules. But whose nodules are they?

My ocean

In September 1945, President Harry Truman claimed for America a large part of the seabed extending from its shores, areas that, before Truman’s claim, were shared by the international community.

In reaction, countries around the world spent the next five decades hammering out a system to limit how much of the seabed that coastal countries could claim, and establishing rules that would govern the remaining shared areas of the oceans.

The resulting arrangement, finalized in 1994, gives countries that border the ocean authority over the resources in the water and seabed within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) of their coasts, known as “exclusive economic zones,” and, for some countries, additional areas of seabed beyond that limit.

add kilometer number in the caption

The United States enjoys one of the world’s largest exclusive economic zones today. It includes an area totaling over 4 million square miles (10 million square kilometers) – larger than all 50 U.S. states combined – and an additional nearly 400 million square miles (1 million square kilometers) of seabed extending even farther offshore.

In those areas, the United States controls the exploitation and management of living and nonliving natural resources, including seabed minerals.

Our ocean

But exclusive economic zones were only one part of what the Law of the Sea Convention negotiators called a “package deal.”

The other part of the deal retains the remaining areas – approximately half of the planet’s seabed – for the international community. It’s known as “the Area,” and its resources are considered the common heritage of mankind. To prevent a free-for-all, no single country can authorize mining in the Area. Instead it is managed by the International Seabed Authority for the benefit of humankind as a whole. To date, the ISA has executed 31 contracts with countries and companies to explore the mineral resources in the Area.

One hundred and seventy-one countries have joined the convention so far. However, the United States, despite being one of its primary architects, is the only industrialized nation remaining outside the treaty.

Nonetheless, the U.S. has long considered the treaty to reflect rules of customary international law. Where the Area is concerned, the U.S. respected the terms of the package deal – until now.

‘America’s’ offshore critical minerals

Trump’s offshore mining order relies on a U.S. statute enacted in 1980 as an interim measure pending completion of negotiations related to the Area. It authorized the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to license exploration and permit commercial recovery of polymetallic nodules on the seabed in areas outside U.S. jurisdiction.

When that 1980 statute was enacted, there was a spurt of commercial interest. The U.S. issued four exploration licenses. Two were relinquished in the 1990s. In the 30-plus years since the international community finalized the package deal, even the company holding the two remaining NOAA licenses – Lockheed Martin – has considered them largely worthless unless the U.S. ratifies the Law of the Sea Convention.

That changed in April 2025 when Trump, citing the 1980 U.S. law, ordered the NOAA to “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction.”

A few days later, Canadian mining firm The Metals Company submitted an application via its wholly-owned subsidiary TMC USA to mine polymetallic nodules in the Area under U.S. unilateral authority. TMC USA touted its application for mining areas in the nodule-rich Clarion Clipperton Zone – in the middle of the Area – as a “world first”.

The International Seabed Authority condemned the move and reminded countries that “unilateral exploitation of resources that belong to no single State but to all of humanity is prohibited.”

Is that legal?

So, does the Trump administration’s plan violate U.S. international obligations?

The answer is maybe.

The U.S. is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention, so it is not bound by the treaty. But scholars disagree on whether U.S. unilateral mining would violate obligations arising from rules of customary international law.

The United States is not the only player in this game. If any of the 171 countries that have subscribed to the treaty were to participate in or allow their citizens to participate in U.S.-authorized mining activity in the Area, they would violate their treaty obligations. Any other convention partner could bring them before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany.

Canada, home of TMC, could find itself in that position. So could many nations whose citizens or companies have worked with TMC. If those partners continued their work with TMC USA under U.S. authorization, their home countries could be exposed to legal action.

The Area is not a domestic source

In announcing an expedited seabed mining application process in January 2026, NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs mischaracterized polymetallic nodules in the Area as “a domestic source of critical minerals for the United States.”

To be clear, the United States has critical minerals on its land territory and within its area of exclusive seabed jurisdiction. It is beginning to explore those resources with an eye to possible future mining. These are domestic American sources of critical minerals – they are “America’s.” The minerals in the Area are not.

Yes, America needs critical minerals, but it should not undermine the system of international ocean governance – a system it engineered and from which it benefits perhaps more than any other nation – to get them.

Coalter G Lathrop 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. In its hunt for critical minerals, the US is misconstruing what is and is not America’s – https://theconversation.com/in-its-hunt-for-critical-minerals-the-us-is-misconstruing-what-is-and-is-not-americas-278185

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ahmed Ibrahim Yunus, Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Every day, food scraps disappear into trash bags, are hauled away and forgotten. But that waste could be turned into something productive.

Across the United States, about 97 million metric tons of food waste are discarded each year, of which about 37 million metric tons end up buried in landfills.

Once underground, that organic material breaks down without oxygen and releases methane, a short-lived yet powerful greenhouse gas.

At the same time, the nutrients and energy stored in that food are permanently lost. But there is a better way. Research my colleagues and I conducted found that communities across the country already operate facilities designed to handle organic matter: wastewater treatment plants. Many larger, well-funded plants already have the infrastructure to process food waste, though not every plant is ready to do so today.

Landfills are not designed for food waste

Food waste is fundamentally different from plastics, metals or glass. It’s organic and can decompose naturally. But when it’s placed in a landfill, its decomposition emits significant greenhouse gases.

Modern landfills are designed to capture the methane emitted, but even the most efficient systems still allow almost 58% to escape into the atmosphere. That food waste could be turned into energy or fertilizer, but instead it contributes to global warming.

By contrast, wastewater treatment plants process sewage using microbial communities that naturally break down organic matter. Many also capture methane produced during treatment and convert it into usable energy. Others recover nutrients such as phosphorus that can be turned into agricultural fertilizer. Over time, many plants have evolved from simple sanitation systems into resource-recovery facilities that generate power, reclaim materials and reduce environmental pollution.

These existing systems already process organic matter and could handle food waste, too.

What happens when food waste goes to a treatment plant

Our research examined what would happen if food waste were sent to wastewater treatment plants rather than landfills. We used real data from a full-scale plant that handles food waste along with sewage.

When we compared greenhouse gas emissions for the same food waste composition, we found that sending food to a landfill would emit 58.2 kilograms (129 pounds) of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of food waste.

In comparison, we looked at a conventional wastewater treatment plant, the type of plant most common in the U.S. It achieved net-negative emissions of –0.03 kilograms (about 1 ounce) of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of food waste treated. The plant captures over 95% of methane, compared to roughly 50% at landfills, saving the atmosphere from additional greenhouse gases.

But we found that the advanced treatment plant we studied reduced emissions further. In our analysis, the advanced facility achieved net-negative emissions of –0.19 kilograms (about 7 ounces) of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of food waste treated.

Both conventional and advanced plants achieve these benefits in similar ways. Treating food waste at either type of plant prevents the 58.2 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton that would otherwise escape from landfills. The plants capture biogas to generate renewable electricity, reducing the need to purchase power from the grid. They also recover enough nutrients to fertilize about 23 acres of farmland annually, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, which require energy-intensive mining and processing.

How the logistics work

Getting the food waste to a wastewater plant doesn’t mean people put their food scraps in the drain or grind them up with an in-sink disposal. At the plant we studied, food waste was collected separately, much like recycling or yard waste, and transported by truck to treatment plants. Our emissions calculations don’t include truck emissions, because trucks are used in the other methods of food waste disposal as well.

Some cities already collect food waste by truck to go to composting facilities. San Francisco has done so since 1996. And New York City has the nation’s largest curbside organics collection, which composts food waste from 3.4 million households.

At the southeastern U.S. treatment plant we studied, trucks deliver food waste to a receiving station, where it’s processed to remove plastics, metals and other nonorganic materials before being blended into a slurry with the sewage solids. This mixture is then added to anaerobic digesters – sealed tanks where microorganisms break down organic material.

The methane that is produced is captured to generate electricity and heat. The remaining solid material is rich in nutrients and can be used to produce useful material, such as fertilizer.

We also found that adding food waste did not overload the plant or cause problems in its operation. The facility processed all of the county’s landfilled food waste – 107,320 tons annually, representing 38% of the county’s total food waste generation. Because of food waste’s lower density compared to wastewater, this added only 0.43% to the plant’s daily capacity. The plant consistently met effluent water regulatory standards. And at certain points, treatment efficiency improved as a result of the additional organic material, which supported the system’s biological processes.

The economics may surprise cities

Local officials, as well as taxpayers, are often worried about the potential costs of a project like this. Wastewater treatment is already expensive, and communities’ existing plants may be nearing capacity.

But the economic results from our analysis suggest that handling food waste in wastewater treatment plants can be financially viable. Towns already pay landfills and incinerators what are called “tipping fees,” based on the weight of the waste delivered. Wastewater treatment plants can also charge these fees.

They can also sell, or use themselves, the methane produced and sell the fertilizer. That additional income means plants can make money even if they charge lower tipping fees than landfills.

Not every wastewater plant is ready to accept food waste immediately. The facility we analyzed is large and well equipped. Smaller operations would likely require new or upgraded equipment, which would involve planning and local investment.

The overall finding of our research is that the limitation isn’t technological or financial. The core systems already exist to transform food waste into a recoverable resource: Cities already handle organic material every day. And they operate complex biological treatment systems. Our evidence suggests these facilities could, in fact, handle food waste in ways that are environmentally beneficial and economically realistic.

Ahmed Ibrahim Yunus receives funding from Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI).

Joe Frank Bozeman III receives funding from Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI).

– ref. How sewage treatment plants could handle food waste, sparing landfills and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-sewage-treatment-plants-could-handle-food-waste-sparing-landfills-and-the-climate-275529

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Holly Willis, Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

I teach a course on AI and filmmaking at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and lately, rather than planning each session well in advance, I’ve been structuring the class the night before. I’ll browse platforms like X, Substack and YouTube, selecting the most provocative articles and video clips to present the following morning.

It’s a testament to how quickly artificial intelligence’s relationship to filmmaking is evolving: Each week brings new – often startling – developments.

The next morning in class, my students and I debate the ethics, aesthetics and the storytelling changes taking place in these collaborations with AI.

And we’re not alone: Throughout Hollywood, everyone – aspiring actors and filmmakers, stars, screenwriters and studio execs – seems to have a take on what’s coming next. But I think three trends in particular are going to be hot topics of conversation at this year’s Oscars parties.

Nothing uncanny about this clip

In February 2026, a 15-second AI-generated video clip of Tom Cruise battling Brad Pitt on a burned-out highway overpass went viral.

Depending on the viewer, the video elicited either admiration, outrage or existential hand-wringing.

Created by Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson via a generative-AI tool called Seedance 2.0, the video marked yet another milestone in the propulsive growth of AI tools.

Seedance 2.0 – which was developed by ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok – is now one of the many AI tools available to create short-form video clips. But unlike most AI-generated videos, Pitt and Cruise don’t look creepy, uncanny or animated in the clip, which almost perfectly mimics live-action footage. The appearance of two A-list stars in a fairly realistic scene created by a relatively unknown director using stolen likenesses jolted the industry.

The backlash was swift. Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that the video was generated from a dataset that most likely includes Disney’s copyrighted characters. The actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, pointed to the video’s “blatant infringement” of the actors’ likenesses, as well as their voices.

“SAG-AFTRA stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by Bytedance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0,” the guild wrote in a statement. This practice, the guild added, “undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood,” while disregarding “law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent.”

In class, after watching the video, we explored the ethics of using someone’s likeness without permission, the challenges facing actors who build careers based on their unique ability to embody characters, and what the future holds for our understanding of acting.

If filmmakers can prompt fake actors to deliver precise performances, where does that leave human actors?

In with the old

Since 2023, the skyline of the Las Vegas strip has been dominated by an illuminated orb called the Sphere: an entertainment complex featuring a 360-degree LED screen covering 160,000 square feet (14,864 square meters). The Sphere recently surpassed 2 million tickets sold for a reimagining of the classic 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.”

The film, which premiered in August 2024, was shortened, its color was enhanced, and it was stretched to expand across the interior of the dome. AI was used to transfer the imagery from the film’s original, modest aspect ratio to the giant dome. This required generating new imagery around the edges of the original shots in what’s known as “AI outpainting.” The technology was also deployed to boost the original film’s resolution and to enhance certain scenes.

Some critics fretted that this fairly radical augmentation of the original classic would offend viewers. Instead, it has drawn them in droves to the Sphere, where they’ve been willing to shell out between US$100 and $200 per ticket.

Not bad for a movie about a girl from Kansas made in 1939.

Given the resounding success of “The Wizard of Oz,” experts expect producers to plumb the film archives for other potential hits and enhance them with AI before screening them in venues as varied as IMAX theaters and Cosm, another 360-degree dome with locations in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta.

Or AI can simply be used to create material that was never completed for a historic film.

In fact, The New Yorker recently profiled AI media entrepreneur Edward Saatchi, who is working to recreate and reincorporate lost footage from Orson Welles’ 1942 feature “The Magnificent Ambersons.” While Welles was in Brazil shooting a documentary, executives at RKO Radio Pictures reedited the film without his approval after a poor preview screening. They cut around 45 minutes, replaced the original ending with a happier one and destroyed most of the footage that had been removed.

Saatchi’s idea is to build a dataset that includes the existing film, as well as scripts, notes, images and even new performances by actors. Then he plans to use his AI platform, Showrunner, to create new scenes from this data.

While Saatchi hopes to honor the director’s creative vision by producing the film he originally intended, his efforts open up some thorny questions.

Is it appropriate to take an existing artwork and revise it without the creator’s input? Isn’t there something sacrosanct about a film, the intentions of the director and the performances of the actors in a film’s original form? To what extent should these questions be overlooked if refashioning old movies will introduce them to new audiences?

Fewer opportunities?

There’s also an undercurrent of anxiety in my classes. What will happen, my students often wonder, once they graduate?

They’re worried that within a year or two, AI will have replaced entry-level film industry jobs, from concept artists to apprentice-level editors, before they’ve even had a chance to enter the workforce.

They have reason to fear.

In 2024, the Animation Guild published a sobering report claiming that by 2026, “creative workers will be facing an era of disruption, defined by the consolidation of some job roles, the replacement of existing job roles with new ones, and the elimination of many jobs entirely.”

Some of those predictions have borne out: 41,000 jobs in film and television have disappeared in Los Angeles County alone over the past three years.

But I’ve tried to counter the hard statistics with some stories of thoughtful practices.

For example, filmmaker Paul Trillo at the AI studio Asteria has talked about how he seeks to keep artists at the center of the process. When he detailed the company’s work on a music video for the singer-songwriter Cuco, he was keen to highlight the number of artists working on the project. Yes, AI tools were used. But they were integrated in a way that replaced the tedious work, not the creative practice.

“Rather than removing [artists] from the process, it actually allowed them to do a lot more so a small team can dream a lot bigger,” Trillo explains at the end of the video.

In January 2026, the management consulting firm McKinsey published a report that largely echoes Trillo’s positive outlook. It forecasts more adoption of AI throughout the industry. But it also points to ways that the technology could lead to different kinds of work and open up new possibilities. For example, as AI-generated scenes become commonplace, studios will need technicians who know how to blend real footage with digitally created worlds. And as AI lowers the cost of producing polished films and shows, it could allow more “micro-studios” and independent filmmakers to create professional-quality content.

At the same time, the report also quotes a studio executive who concedes that AI could represent “a more significant platform shift than we have ever seen before in our industry.”

So it’s no wonder my students, along with varied critics, commentators and industry professionals, are nervous.

However, from where I stand, I’m convinced that the industry will weather this radical disruption. It’s adapted to big changes in the past: the addition of sound in the 1920s, the threat posed by videotape in the 1980s and streaming in the 2000s.

In the end, people will always crave new, artfully told stories. While the filmmaking tools and job market may be in transition, that core need for storytelling is not going away.

Holly Willis 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 the Oscars approach, Hollywood grapples with AI’s growing influence on filmmaking – https://theconversation.com/as-the-oscars-approach-hollywood-grapples-with-ais-growing-influence-on-filmmaking-273766

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Hosffman Ospino, Professor of Hispanic Ministry and Religious Education, Boston College

On Ash Wednesday, 2026, two Roman Catholic priests and a religious sister entered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, to celebrate Mass with detainees inside.

It might seem like a simple, routine event: a religious service to mark the start of Lent. But the Mass represented a legal win for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, based in Chicago. Among its founders are Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz and Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, a young married couple dedicated to advocacy for migrant rights.

The coalition and other Catholic leaders sued the Trump administration after attempts to bring spiritual care to detainees in 2025 were blocked. On Feb. 18, 2026, a federal judge ordered authorities to allow clergy inside for Ash Wednesday.

That same day, Catholics in Communion, a new coalition of ministry organizations, religious orders, academic leaders and parish partners, launched its Season of Faithful Witness campaign. Spearheaded by faith-based community organizers such as Joseph Tomás McKellar and Sergio Lopez, the initiative invites Catholics to practice solidarity by praying and advocating on behalf of migrants.

And two weeks earlier, dozens of students at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah, many of them Latino, participated in a walkout to support migrants, although the school did not sanction the event.

What do these leaders have in common? They are young, Latino and Catholic. Most were born in the United States. Many of the migrants they advocate for are their relatives, friends and neighbors.

About 4 in 10 Catholics in the United States identify as Hispanic or Latino. Among young Catholics born after 1982, that rises to 5 in 10.

As Catholic theologians who have researched Latino Catholics for several decades, we believe they are redefining U.S. Catholicism. Young Latinos’ faith-based advocacy has put a spotlight on this group that will shape the future of the church.

Beyond stereotypes

Young people constitute the largest portion of the more than 68 million Latinos in the United States. Despite their diversity, though, their experiences tend to be lumped together, and often treated as the same as migrants’.

Most young Hispanics in the U.S., in fact, are not immigrants. Ninety-four percent of Latinos under age 18 were born in the U.S, as were 65% of millennial Latinos.

The vast majority of Latinos under age 35 are English speakers. Around 40% say they are bilingual, while around 20% say they are dominant in Spanish.

An estimated 30% of Latinos between 18-29, and 42% between 30-49, identify as Catholic – a decrease from older generations. Overall, 43% of Latino adults in the U.S. are Catholic, compared to 67% in 2010. Among ages 18-29, 15% are Protestant, and 49% are unaffiliated. Among ages 30-49, 23% are Protestant, and 29% are religiously unaffiliated.

Regardless of how Latinos identify, however, many of them grew up deeply influenced by a Catholic spirituality that permeates Latino culture, with traditions such as small altars in homes and businesses; “posadas,” a popular nine-day period of prayer leading up to Christmas that remembers Mary and Joseph’s search for a a place to rest before Jesus’ birth; and “quinceañeras,” a rite of passage when young women turn 15.

The lives of young Latinos often unfold in between cultural worlds. This can be simultaneously a source of strength or confusion. Young Latinos often feel they don’t fully belong anywhere: that they are “too Latino for the U.S. Americans” but also “too North American for Latinos.”

Bridging faith and activism

Yet many of these young people, whether they are Catholic or not, are increasingly embracing their two or more cultures. They see that inheritance as a gift – and often as inspiration to advocate for social justice. Leaders we have interviewed see themselves as “gente puente,” or “bridge builders,” who can find fresh ways of being Catholic and American, grounded in faith-inspired commitments to justice.

In another recent study from Boston College, one of us, Hosffman Ospino, looked closely at 12 national organizations serving young Hispanic Catholics. The report concludes that initiatives that invite young Latinos to get involved with faith-based social justice are one of the most important ways to keep them engaged with their Catholic identity. When serving in their parishes, young Latinos are often involved with efforts to teach English to migrants, denounce racism, bring food to the hungry, protect life from “womb to tomb” and care for the environment, among others.

Many young Latino Catholics balance faith and public engagement through social justice immersion trips, visiting the U.S.-Mexico border, starting social ministries in their parishes or collecting food for families of migrants who have been detained. Others write letters to elected officials about immigration reform and just treatment of migrants and refugees, or help migrants file their taxes.

Present and future of the church

As the percentage of U.S. Catholics who are Latino rises, the country’s bishops have repeatedly asserted the importance of listening to young Latinos.

In 2018, for example, the bishops conference convened a gathering of 3,000 delegates as part of the Fifth National Encuentro for Hispanic/Latino Ministry. This multiyear process consulted nearly 300,000 Catholics, mostly Hispanic, about their faith and priorities. The “Encuentro” – or “Encounter” – highlighted the need to empower Latinos to participate in church and society.

In 2023, the bishops approved the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry, which proposed 10 priorities to accompany Latino Catholics. Supporting Latino youth and strengthening young adult ministries were among the top four.

Pope Francis, too, emphasized the need to listen to young Catholics, and Latinos in particular. His 2019 apostolic exhortation “Christus Vivit” – “Christ is alive” – insisted that all in the church “need to make [more] room for the voices of young people to be heard.” Visiting Philadelphia in 2015, he told Hispanic Catholics, “By contributing your gifts, you will not only find your place here, you will help to renew society from within.”

It’s the kind of message that resonates with young Catholic Latino community organizers like Joseph Tomás McKellar, one of the leaders behind the Season of Faithful Witness campaign. Born in California to a Mexican mother and a Scottish father, he wrote in the book we edited that “bridge-building and kinship are at the heart of my family’s origin story.”

McKellar recalled speaking with a border patrol agent who, seeing his brown skin and name, accused him of lying about U.S. citizenship. Instead of making him resentful, the experience deepened his commitment to be a bridge builder. It galvanized his “sense of vocation,” renewing a commitment to “create a society where all people can belong and thrive.”

Hosffman Ospino works for Boston College.

Both authors, Hosffman Ospino and Timothy Matovina, interviewed Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz, Joanna Arellano and Joseph Tomás McKellar for a book project cited in the article.

Timothy Matovina is a board member of Iskali, an Hispanic Catholic youth organization in Chicago, and co-director (with Hosffman Ospino), of Haciendo Caminos, a national initiative in pastoral theological education funded through a grant with the Lilly Endowment.

– ref. Young Latinos – and their commitment to social justice – are shaping the future of the Catholic Church – https://theconversation.com/young-latinos-and-their-commitment-to-social-justice-are-shaping-the-future-of-the-catholic-church-277158

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Amaarah DeCuir, Senior Professorial Lecturer in Education, American University

The war in the Middle East is rapidly expanding across the Gulf countries, including Iran and Lebanon. The conflict has already targeted the region’s civilians, natural resources, tourist destinations and U.S. military bases.

Some Muslim community leaders in the U.S. warn that people far from the conflict could experience backlash. They say Muslim and Arab communities in the U.S. may face increased hostility as the war intensifies.

Fouad Berry, a board member at the Islamic Institute of Knowledge in Dearborn, Michigan, said that the community center and mosque is heightening security because of the war.

“We get threatening calls all the time, especially when things like that happen in the Middle East,” he recently told WXYZ, a local ABC News affiliate. “And we’re anticipating that.”

The risk of violence is likely furthered by some national political leaders spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric. On March 9, 2026, Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, wrote on the social media platform X, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican from Florida, also recently wrote on X that the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a “difficult” one.

Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination was already on the rise in the U.S. before the Feb. 28 airstrikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.

Iran is not an Arab country. Most of its population is Persian and speaks Farsi. Still, some people may conflate Iran and Iranian Americans with Arab countries.

In 2025, 63% of Muslims in the U.S. said they experienced religious discrimination, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a research organization that focuses on Muslim Americans. That percentage was comparable with what the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, reported in 2024 as the highest number of discrimination complaints received since it began recording.

This would not be the first time a conflict involving Muslim-majority countries led to increased discrimination against Muslim and Arab communities in the U.S.

I study Muslim and Arab student experiences in American public schools. My research shows that global conflicts in the Middle East tend to provoke Islamophobia, meaning hatred and fear of Muslim people, in the U.S.

A ‘war on terror’ reaches students

Days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror,” primarily targeting al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In 2002, Bush helped establish the Department of Homeland Security, a new federal agency to prevent terrorism. As part of this work, the department began monitoring Americans’ phone records and other personal information, disproportionately monitoring Muslims.

Public attitudes also shifted quickly after the attacks. A Gallup poll conducted three days after Sept. 11 found that 3 out of 10 Americans had heard negative comments about Arabs since al-Qaida’s attack. More than half of those surveyed supported increased security measures aimed at Arab Americans.

Nine weeks after Sept. 11, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Council, an organization that advocates for Muslim and Arab Americans, reported an unprecedented number of anti-Arab discriminatory incidents, including cases involving students at schools.

In 2002, the FBI published hate crime statistics showing an increase in racial and religious hate incidents. The report did not specifically break down findings about particular religious or ethnic groups.

According to NPR, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program did not specifically track statistics on Muslims and Arabs from 1992 through 2015.

A 2007 mental health study of Muslim American youth was among the other findings that revealed heightened discrimination and bullying toward Muslim students.

A fixed trend

This pattern of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination has continued since then.

In her 2016 book, “The 9/11 Generation,” scholar Sunaina Marr Maira explored how California students who were from communities targeted by the war organized to promote human and civil rights. They wanted to challenge stereotypes they often heard about Muslims and Arabs being violent and prone to terrorism.

In 2020, 51% of American Muslim families reported that their children experienced religious-based bullying at school, in the form of insults or physical assaults.

In 2021, mental health researchers documented lingering effects of 9/11 backlash. Students continued to describe facing discrimination at school, which resulted in anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

My own research from 2021 found that Muslim and Arab students tended to experience a spike in hate and bigotry during lessons on Sept. 11, when some educators and students conflated terrorism with Islam and Muslims.

Students I spoke with described being called terrorists and other Muslim and Arab tropes.

These findings likely only capture part of the problem, because anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes are often underreported.

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, Arab and Muslim students in the U.S. faced a spike in discriminatory and hateful incidents, according to Vision of Humanity, a project of the think tank Institute for Economics & Peace. In November 2023, three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont.

What teachers can do

The current, rapidly shifting war in the Middle East is sharply distinct from the war on terror. For starters, the U.S. in the early 2000s mainly fought against terrorist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, not a sovereign country like Iran.

But some elements are similar – including the fact that both wars have involved countries with majority Muslim populations.

It is not easy for educators to anticipate how this conflict may impact Muslim and Arab students.

But the war on terror offers some lessons that may help educators protect students and minimize anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate.

My research shows that teachers create unsafe classrooms when they teach inaccurate narratives of international conflicts. Students can feel more isolated, and even targeted, if lessons replicate stereotypes. Teaching current events during times of war is difficult in K-12 classrooms. In many cases, teachers do not have up-to-date curriculum materials that they can use. But I still think it is necessary.

Some educator guides recommend teaching media literacy, including people’s firsthand experiences. Teachers could also help students learn about how to find reliable media sources to understand complex issues like U.S. foreign policy.

Next, I think classrooms can create safe and caring environments for students impacted by war. Muslim and Arab students with deep emotional and cultural ties to the Middle East could still experience trauma, even if they are not physically close to the war.

A 2025 Muslim community poll by the nonprofit research group Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that educators and teachers are responsible for 1 of 3 reported incidents of anti-Muslim bullying, which could reflect their own biases.

But educators remain the best line of defense against anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bullying.

Teaching against Islamophobia and enforcing policies that prohibit discrimination can help build safe and supportive environments for Muslim and Arab students.

It is not clear what the future will bring to the Middle East, or to Muslim and Arab people in the U.S. But these lessons might help make schools and classrooms safer for Muslim and Arab students.

Amaarah DeCuir 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. When US fights in the Middle East, American Muslim students often face discrimination – https://theconversation.com/when-us-fights-in-the-middle-east-american-muslim-students-often-face-discrimination-277676

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Katherine Moses, Instructional Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, University of Mississippi

I had been with my boyfriend, Tyler, for almost 10 years when we finally agreed that we should get engaged and married. Up until then, our respective jobs – mine as an academic, his as a fisherman – had forced us to endure long stretches apart.

But I had been offered a permanent academic job teaching philosophy in Florida. Tyler said he was willing to start a business there. It seemed like the beginning of a new, stable chapter of our lives.

We moved before he officially proposed, however. Then he went to Canada for seasonal work.

In our new house in Florida, the engagement ring remained stashed away in a box for the three months he was in Canada, a period in which we didn’t see each other at all.

Alone in a new and exciting place, I tested the boundaries of our relationship to the breaking point.

Self-deception is at the heart of lying

Aristotle says that truthfulness is the virtuous middle ground between exaggeration and understatement when communicating with others. One can only become virtuous by habituation – one becomes just by doing just acts; one becomes truthful by practicing truth-telling.

Unfortunately, we can much more easily steer ourselves in the opposite direction. Vice emerges from a series of small permissions and self-deceptions that break down the walls of limits and restraint.

Aristotle said that lying is an unjust act. Every time we slide a lie into our testimony, we move a little closer to developing the vice of injustice.

I was, it turned out, failing in exactly this regard, at a time that I was studying and writing on Aristotle.

In Florida, I felt untethered. I threw myself into surfing. And exercising. And meeting people.

I also threw myself into dancing. I had already line danced a decent bit in the past, and I had even been salsa dancing once before.

But Florida’s dance culture was exhilarating. There were countless lessons to sign up for, parties where I could practice my moves, and festivals to attend. Each event was charged with undercurrents of romance and flirtation. I convinced myself that these were both harmless and fruitful, as dancing was allowing me to “get to know” other people in interesting ways.

When I was out late one night at a dance club, a young woman came up to me just to tell me how beautiful my dance partner and I looked together – how he treated me “like a queen.” At first concerned that she and others thought we were a couple, I quickly dismissed it as unimportant.

I didn’t tell Tyler about that encounter. Nor did I mention the night I spent a little too closely with someone else dancing alone.

The omissions multiplied.

I drove two hours to dance with a different man, driving home at 2 in the morning, half asleep at the wheel. Soon after, I stopped sharing my phone location with Tyler, reasoning that since I didn’t have his location, he shouldn’t have mine.

To act truly viciously after having been at least a half-decent person, you first have to persuade yourself that the bad habit you’ve developed isn’t so bad after all. Lying to another consistently, then, requires lying to oneself about either the value of the truth or about what actually counts as true.

The irony is that I’m a philosopher who studies knowledge and virtue. I had even attended a weeklong workshop on honesty shortly before moving to Florida. That fall, I taught Aristotle’s virtue ethics to undergraduates, lecturing about moral character without pausing to measure the distance between his theories and my own life.

Meanwhile, the ring sat unopened in a drawer.

In truth-telling, timing is everything

In retrospect, my behavior in Florida didn’t come out of nowhere. A pattern had emerged years earlier.

Most of our relationship had unfolded across state lines. I moved to St. Louis for graduate school while he worked in Alabama. Later, he began working seasonally across the continent.

To ease my loneliness in graduate school, I spent much of my free time meeting people, including men – philosophy is a male-dominated field, after all.

Though I never became romantically involved with anyone, I would often spend time with other men, which, unsurprisingly, led to some unseemly situations. I might eat dinner out, one on one, with a male friend, or watch a movie with another guy at his house. There was the guy I’d take hourslong walks with occasionally, and the friend whose radio show I’d listen to every day.

Over time, it became clear that some of these men hoped for more.

One friend once asked, over coffee, “Are you sure you don’t have any single sisters?” Two other male friends often joked that my boyfriend must not exist, since they had never met him – that I invoked him only to deflect advances.

I avoided telling Tyler these stories in real time. I feared he would suggest creating distance. Instead, I waited until friendships faded naturally and then disclosed these sorts of details, reassuring myself that I was being transparent.

But truthfulness, like comedy, depends on timing. A late truth can function just like a lie, and Aristotle thought that the person who values the truth will always share it at the appropriate time.

Cold, hard truths

According to Aristotle, truthfulness as a virtue “requires us to honor truth above our friends.” In other words, truth should be honored utmost within a relationship, even if that means that your friend or partner may feel hurt by the truth. Truth is actually the foundation for a stable, virtuous friendship.

Tyler seemed to understand this instinctively, and, when I first began dating him, it didn’t take long to learn how brutally honest he could be.

Early in our relationship, I wanted to spend every day with him. But one day he told me that he would always need days where he was alone, because he didn’t always like to be around other people, including me. Later in our relationship, I joked about having a baby while being severely obese; Tyler responded plainly, “You’ll need to lose some weight before we have any kids.”

It was the first time anyone had ever told me that I needed to lose weight in order to have something I wanted or accomplish a goal.

I didn’t appreciate the wisdom of these messages, or see them as opportunities to learn and grow. Instead, I resented the messenger.

Aristotle thought that telling the truth is crucial in friendship and in general, even if it could lead to hurt feelings. Oftentimes, feeling wounded by the truth shows something in need of repair in you; maybe there is something you can do to improve yourself. If telling the truth harms the relationship, then your relationship was like a house of cards – it was built on lies, half-truths or omissions, making it fragile and susceptible to destruction when the truth finally shows up on the scene.

Justice is always accompanied by truth and trust for Aristotle; he believed that even political alliances and civic communities should be built on truthfulness rather than deception. For friendships and communities to really thrive, everyone involved has to value the truth for its own sake.

In many of these contexts, truth is not the priority; it didn’t used to be in my relationship either.

Honesty is a relationship’s beating heart

When Tyler got back to Florida, seeing him in person, I finally felt the guilt about what I had been doing – dancing in inappropriate ways, spending time with other men in romantic settings. As I told him the truth, I felt horribly ashamed. And rightly so: To tell the truth to Tyler was also to admit to myself that I had done something degrading and shameful.

In reality, my telling the truth was the only way for us to figure out whether the relationship could be and ought to be made whole again.

Tyler was always confident in the value of truth in his everyday life. I had been more skeptical, more prone to weakness of will and self-deception. His mindset didn’t change when the truth came out – he wanted to hear what I had to say, even though it hurt him deeply.

For Aristotle, truthfulness does not demand indiscriminate disclosure of every passing thought, nor does it license cruelty. But it does require an intention to be accurate and not mislead. And it was clear that throughout our relationship, I had been less than truthful and could take a page from Tyler’s book.

There is, of course, good reason for the clichés that “the truth hurts” and “the truth shall set you free.”

Taken together, they capture the idea that truth-telling can be a damaging yet liberating act, both for speakers and their audiences. I was – and often still am – resentful and disheartened when I hear difficult truths from Tyler, my parents or my friends.

But Aristotle emphasizes how the good and noble person – the magnanimous person – cares more about truth than about what other people think about him, and so he will be appreciative of the truth when he comes across it. He will also “speak and act openly,” including and particularly when others are doing something discreditable. When you have done something discreditable, Aristotle thinks that to become more good, to become more noble, you have to call yourself out for it.

Something changed after I opened up about what had been happening in Florida. I realized that I had resented Tyler for words that were true but hard to hear. And that was wrong; the truth should never be the source of resentment, but rather coming to know the truth should always be grounds for appreciation. Truth is not something that can override friendship; rather, truth is essential for genuine friendship.

In the moment, hearing the truth can feel uncomfortable or even devastating. But when the listener really values the truth, then even hearing something outrageously blunt or inappropriately timed can be made righteous – if it is used by the listener to become more self-aware and to make better decisions moving forward.

For Aristotle, truth is part of the aim of human life. That means that when human beings are at their absolute best, they are discovering truth and contemplating it once discovered.

After many months of rebuilding our relationship, Tyler and I eventually got engaged and married. We’re much stronger now because we’ve built a relationship explicitly on truthfulness, which involves both truth-telling and truth-seeking. We each recognize the importance of truth in giving us the chance to love one another more fully.

While rationalizing deception is easy to do, developing the virtue of truthfulness is not. But it’s an invaluable trait to develop – brutal honesty may temporarily wound, but deceptions, whether they’re small or large, will ultimately corrode all relationships.

This work was supported by the John Templeton Foundation grant “The Honesty Project” (ID#61842). Nevertheless, the opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

– ref. I was teaching virtue and knowledge while lying on the side – https://theconversation.com/i-was-teaching-virtue-and-knowledge-while-lying-on-the-side-270668

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Anna Raymaker, Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

The war in Iran has dominated headlines with reports of airstrikes and escalating military activity. But beyond the immediate devastation, the conflict has also illuminated a quieter and rapidly growing danger: the vulnerability of ships, and the people who operate them, to disruption of their navigation systems.

Modern shipping depends heavily on GPS satellite navigation. When those signals are disrupted or manipulated, ships can suddenly appear to their navigators and to other ships to be somewhere they are not. In some cases, vessels have been shown jumping across maps, drifting miles inland or appearing to circle in impossible patterns. The risk is even higher in war zones, where ships could be misdirected into harm’s way.

As a cybersecurity researcher studying critical infrastructure and maritime systems, I investigate how digital threats affect ships and the people who operate them.

To understand the threat from GPS disruptions, it helps to first understand how GPS works. GPS systems determine location using signals from satellites orbiting Earth. A receiver calculates its position by measuring how long those signals take to arrive. Because those signals are extremely weak by the time they reach Earth, they are relatively easy to disrupt.

GPS jamming and spoofing

In GPS jamming, an attacker blocks the real satellite signals by overwhelming them with electromagnetic noise so receivers cannot detect them. When this happens, navigation systems lose their position. On a phone, it might look like the map freezing or jumping erratically.

GPS spoofing is more sophisticated. Instead of blocking signals, an attacker transmits fake satellite signals designed to mimic the real ones. The receiver accepts these signals and gives a false location. Imagine driving north while your navigation system suddenly insists you are traveling south. The receiver is not malfunctioning; it has simply been tricked.

For mariners at sea, spoofing can have serious consequences. In the open ocean, there are few landmarks to verify a ship’s position if GPS behaves strangely. Nearshore, the margin for error disappears: Water depths change quickly and hazards are everywhere, especially in narrow routes like the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, where reports indicate that GPS spoofing has been happening since the outbreak of the war. Because ships are large and slow to maneuver, even small navigation errors can lead to groundings or collisions.

Red Sea grounding

One example came in May 2025. While transiting the Red Sea, the container ship MSC Antonia began showing positions far from its true location. To navigators onboard, this looked like they had jumped hundreds of miles south on the map and started moving in a new direction. This caused the crew to become disoriented, and the ship eventually ran aground. The grounding caused millions of dollars in damage and required a salvage operation that lasted over five weeks.

Incidents like the MSC Antonia are not isolated. Vessel-tracking data has revealed clusters of ships suddenly appearing in impossible locations, sometimes far inland or moving in perfect circles. These anomalies are increasingly linked to GPS spoofing in regions experiencing geopolitical conflict.

But GPS interference is only one type of cyber threat facing ships. Industry reports have documented ransomware attacks on shipping companies, supply chain compromises and increasing concern about the security of onboard control systems, including engines, propulsion and navigation equipment. As ships become more connected through satellite internet systems and remote monitoring tools, the number of potential entry points for cyberattacks is growing.

Military vessels often address these risks through stricter network segregation and regular training exercises such as “mission control” drills, which simulate operating with compromised communications or navigation systems. Some cybersecurity experts argue that similar practices could help commercial shipping improve its resilience, although smaller crews and limited resources make adopting military-style procedures more difficult.

Mariners’ experiences

Much of the public discussion around maritime cybersecurity focuses on technical vulnerabilities in ship systems. But an equally important piece of the puzzle is the people who must interpret and respond to these technologies when something goes wrong.

In recent research, my colleagues and I interviewed professional mariners about their experiences with cyber incidents and their preparedness to respond to them. The interviews included navigation officers, engineers and other crew members responsible for ship systems. What emerged was a consistent picture: Cyber threats are increasingly occurring at sea, but crews are not well prepared to deal with them.

Many mariners told us that their cybersecurity training focused almost entirely on email phishing and USB drives. That kind of training may make sense in an office, but it does little to prepare crews for cyber incidents on a ship, where navigation and control systems can be the primary targets. As a result, many mariners lack clear guidance on how cyberattacks might affect the equipment they rely on every day.

This becomes a problem when ship systems begin behaving strangely. Mariners described GPS showing incorrect positions or temporarily losing signal. It can be difficult to tell whether these incidents are equipment failures or signs of cyber interference.

Even when mariners suspect something may be wrong, many ships lack clear procedures for responding to cyber incidents. Participants frequently described situations where they would have to improvise if navigation or other digital systems behaved unexpectedly. Unlike equipment failures, which have established checklists and procedures, cyber incidents often fall into a gray area where responsibility and response plans are unclear.

Another challenge is the gradual disappearance of traditional navigation practices. For centuries, mariners relied on paper charts and celestial navigation to determine their position. Today, most commercial vessels rely almost entirely on electronic systems.

Many mariners noted that paper charts are not available onboard, and celestial navigation is rarely practiced. If GPS or electronic navigation systems fail, crews have limited ways to independently verify their position. One mariner bluntly described the risk to us: “If you don’t have charts and you’re being spoofed, you’re a little screwed.”

Increasing connectivity, increasing risk

At the same time, ships are becoming more connected. Modern vessels increasingly rely on satellite internet systems like Starlink and remote monitoring tools to manage operations and communicate with shore.

While these technologies improve efficiency, they also expand the vulnerability of ship systems. Connectivity that allows crews to send emails or access the internet can also provide pathways for cyber threats to reach onboard systems.

As GPS spoofing becomes more common in regions experiencing geopolitical conflict, the challenges mariners described in our research are becoming harder to ignore. The oceans may seem vast and empty, but the digital signals that guide modern ships travel through crowded and contested space.

When those signals are manipulated, the consequences do not stay confined to military systems. They reach the commercial vessels that carry most of the world’s goods and the crews responsible for navigating them safely.

Anna Raymaker receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy for her research.

– ref. When GPS lies at sea: How electronic warfare is threatening ships and their crews – https://theconversation.com/when-gps-lies-at-sea-how-electronic-warfare-is-threatening-ships-and-their-crews-278181

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Eric Lob, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University

Iran’s new ruler is already a marked man.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaced his slain father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s supreme leader, is an unacceptable choice and threatened to assassinate him if he does not agree to U.S. demands.

Although the supreme leader possesses disproportionate power, he is not the single authority. Instead, he is one of several positions and institutions through which the Islamic Republic’s 47-year-old regime organizes its ruling structure. Below is a rundown of how each of these entities functions and interacts with one another.

The supreme leader

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the position and office of supreme leader was created by the Iranian Constitution. It is based on the concept of the Guardianship of the Jurist, or “Velayat-e Faqih.”

Under Twelver Shiism – the sect of Shiite Islam that Iranians follow – the concept asserts that state affairs should be administered by righteous jurists, or faqih, until the return of the 12th imam, who is believed to have gone into hiding in 874 C.E. This concept was conceived by the first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran for 10 years until his death in 1989.

Initially, the constitution called for the supreme leader to be a grand ayatollah and “source of emulation,” or marja’ al-taqlid – the highest-ranking cleric in the Shiite religious hierarchy. In 1989, the constitution was amended to allow Khamenei, who was a midranking cleric at the time, to assume the position from the ailing Khomeini.

Although the supreme leader is a lifetime appointment, Article 111 of the constitution authorizes the Assembly of Experts to dismiss him if he is deemed politically and religiously incapable or unqualified.

Inside the Islamic Republic or ruling system, the supreme leader is the ultimate religious and political authority. He commands the armed forces, supervises the state media and appoints the chief justice, who is the head of the judiciary.

According to articles 57 and 110 of the constitution, the supreme leader sets domestic and foreign policy and supervises all branches of the government, including the executive, legislature and judiciary. Through the Guardian Council, he has the power to vet electoral candidates and veto parliamentary laws.

The presidency

Following the revolution in 1979, the new constitution established the position, or office, of the president. The first presidential election was held in 1980.

While the supreme leader is the head of state, the president is the head of the government. After the supreme leader, the president is the second-in-command of the executive branch. As such, he answers to the supreme leader and executes his decrees.

Every four years, presidential elections take place with the participation of Iranians at least 18 years old.

If reelected, the president cannot consecutively serve for more than two terms. It should be noted that every president has done so, except for Ebrahim Raisi, who governed from 2021 to 2024 and died in a helicopter crash before the end of his first term.

Before the election, all candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council, which is controlled by the supreme leader.

As the chairman of the Cabinet, the president appoints its ministers, pending a parliamentary vote of confidence. That said, the supreme leader has the authority to dismiss and reinstate them, along with the vice president.

Assembly of experts

In 1979, the Assembly of Experts of Leadership, or Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari, was created in the new constitution and held its first election the same year. Article 111 of the constitution authorizes the assembly to appoint, supervise and, if necessary, remove the supreme leader.

In this sense, the assembly acts as a deliberative body and is legally required to convene at least twice every six months. Its proceedings have remained strictly confidential and closed to the public.

The Assembly of Experts contains around 80 members. As ayatollahs or mujtahids, they are experts in Islamic law and exercise independent reasoning, or ijtihad. During the Islamic Republic’s history, the number of members has ranged from 82 in 1982 to 88 in 2016 and 2024. They serve eight-year terms and are directly or popularly elected by Iranians citizens.

At the same time, and as with other elections, the Guardian Council – which is controlled by the supreme leader– vets all the candidates who apply to run for office or enter the election, making the process far from free and fair.

In essence, the supreme leader approves the candidates who are potentially elected to a body that oversees him. For this reason, as observers point out, the assembly has not been known to seriously supervise or overtly challenge him.

In the past two elections for the Assembly of Experts in 2016 and 2024, the Guardian Council disqualified hundreds of candidates. Many of them were moderates and reformists who opposed the supreme leader on various issues.

Consequently, the choice among voters was largely limited to conservatives and hard-liners who currently dominate the assembly.

Guardian Council

According to the Iranian Constitution, the Guardian Council, or Shoura-ye Negahban, has the power to veto laws passed by the popularly elected parliament. It is also authorized to vet candidates in elections, including those for the presidency, parliament and Assembly of Experts.

The council is composed of 12 jurists and lawyers who specialize in Islamic law and jurisprudence. They serve six-year phased terms in which half the members change every three years. The supreme leader appoints half of the council’s members and can dismiss them at will anytime. The chief justice appoints the other half, with a parliamentary vote of confidence.

Since the supreme leader also appoints the chief justice, he consequently controls the council. At the same time, the council has been known to assert a degree of agency and autonomy, as evidenced by the supreme leader occasionally ordering it to reverse bans on particular people running for public office.

Since the late 1990s, the council has disqualified a growing number of reformist candidates, many of whom have been at odds with the supreme leader over certain issues.

Consequently, conservatives and hard-liners, including those affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, have increasingly dominated the parliament and Assembly of Experts.

Nevertheless, the Guardian Council has been unable to prevent reformists and moderates from participating in elections and even winning them, as in the case of current President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Expediency Discernment Council

In 1988, the constitution was amended to establish the Expediency Discernment Council of the System, or Majma’-e Tashkhis-e Maslahat-e Nezam.

The council’s chairman and other members are appointed by the supreme leader every five years. The council originally consisted of 13 members.

The Expediency Discernment Council initially acted as an administrative assembly that mediated and resolved disputes and differences between the Guardian Council and parliament over legislation.

Throughout the years, and based on articles 110 and 111 of the constitution, the council evolved into a body that advises the supreme leader on domestic and foreign policy and strategy.

Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, Khamenei relied on the Expediency Discernment Council to reduce the powers of the reformist-majority parliament and pressure it to approve the chief justice’s six appointees to the Guardian Council.

He also expanded the Expediency Discernment Council to 34 members – 25 of whom he appointed – and stacked it with conservatives.

Since 2007 it has consisted of 27 members, all of whom are appointed by the supreme leader. In the mid-2000s, Khamenei delegated some of his authority to the council to supervise the three branches of government.

Iran’s parliament

The Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran serves as Iran’s parliament and consists of a unicameral national legislative body. Representatives serve four-year terms and are elected by a popular vote.

Alongside the executive branch, the parliament can introduce legislation or propose new laws. That said, its capacity to pass laws is constrained when the Guardian Council construes them as contradicting or conflicting with the constitution and religion.

The parliament votes to approve the president’s Cabinet appointees. Alongside the supreme leader, it can also dismiss them and impeach the president for official misconduct.

Since 1979, the parliament has been chaired or led by six speakers, including, since 2020, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a conservative former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, which serves as the main armed force of Iran.

During the 2024 parliamentary election, which had a historically low voter turnout of 41%, the Guardian Council disqualified most moderate and reformist candidates. This paved the way for conservatives and hard-liners to secure a sweeping majority of 233 out of 290 seats.

It is inside this complex landscape of individuals and institutions that Mojtaba Khamenei has been appointed supreme leader. Although he stands at the pinnacle of the Islamic Republic’s ruling structure, it does not rely on him alone.

Eric Lob is affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

– ref. Iran’s ruling structure explained – https://theconversation.com/irans-ruling-structure-explained-277913

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Debaleena Chattopadhyay, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois Chicago

This past Christmas, I helped my parents choose a water filter. The latest “smart” models all came with a smartphone app that promised to monitor filter life, track water quality and automatically request service. Yet my father, age 75, and mother, 67, were quick to reject them in favor of a nondigital model.

“Every time it updates or I forget how to use it, we’ll have to call you,” my dad said.

As an only child living 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) away, I didn’t need convincing. My parents are aging in place and don’t need traditional caregiving – they cook, drive and manage their home just fine. Instead, I provide what I call technology caregiving: helping them with their digital activities of daily living, from online banking to booking theater tickets.

But as the tech industry shifts toward artificial intelligence agents and generative user interfaces – promising to make devices smarter than ever – I am bracing for this invisible workload to become heavier, not lighter. In addition to being a technology caregiver, I’m a computer scientist who studies human-computer interaction.

Technology caregiving

Technology caregiving is the act of helping someone use digital tools. While this isn’t entirely new – people have long helped grandparents program VCRs and connect parents’ desktop computers to the internet – the stakes have changed.

Today, digitization is ubiquitous. Helping with these tools is no longer just occasional unpaid tech support – it is a form of continuous caregiving essential for maintaining independence. For example, even the simple act of clipping coupons has gone digital – marginalizing older adults who are unable to navigate store apps to access these discounts.

People often view older adults as resistant to technology, but recent years – particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic – have shattered that myth. While gaps in internet access and device ownership remain, they are no longer major barriers to technology access.

The emerging crisis is not about access, but effective use. Many older adults are now online and willing to use these tools, but they require frequent help from family, friends or communities.

The innovation tax

The problem isn’t just that devices and apps are getting complex; it’s that they are constantly changing. Frequent software updates and shifting interfaces can be frustrating for all users, but they turn familiar tools into foreign concepts for older adults.

This unpredictability is about to accelerate. Take generative user interfaces, which designers can use to dynamically generate an interface in minutes. Pair them with AI agents, and the system can assume the designer’s role, taking independent actions based on how it perceives a user’s intent or need.

If the “Pay Bill” button is in a different place every third time you open a particular app because an AI decided to optimize the interface, you might feel perpetually incompetent if you can’t quickly locate it. While the industry calls this personalization, for an older adult it is a moving target.

This relentless pace of change – even when intended to be helpful – is directly at odds with age-related cognitive changes. And this dynamic is continuing with the new generation of seniors. They may be more eager to adopt new tools than the last, but wanting to use technology is not the same as being able to use it when the rules are constantly changing.

To navigate a brand new or shifting interface, your brain relies on fluid intelligence: the ability to reason, solve novel problems and ignore distractions on the fly. Unlike the knowledge that people accumulate over time, fluid intelligence naturally declines with age.

When an app updates or an AI optimizes a layout, it forces the user to discard their hard-won mental models and start over. For an older adult, this isn’t just a minor inconvenience; it is a taxing job for their working memory.

As an older adult participant in a study my colleagues and I conducted put it:

“I had a computer on my desk in 1980, OK, when nobody else did. So this is not a foreign language, but the changes that are made with little to no explanation and then things that you knew how to do have either changed or disappeared completely, that is the stuff that absolutely drives me, and I will tell you, every other older adult in America nuts.”

Help the helper

I believe that the way forward is to stop treating tech support as an afterthought and start designing for the technology caregiver. Digital literacy training for seniors and encouraging designing technologies for all users are important but not enough; it’s important to build tools that share the burden.

Two promising paths are emerging. First, cognitive accessibility features – like AI assistants that find buried buttons or provide real-time tech support – can offload tasks from the caregiver. Second, tools for caregivers are beginning to move beyond simply controlling device feature access to capabilities such as allowing authorized access for banking as co-users, or recording personalized instructions.

These tools will also need to be tailored: Family caregivers need different tools than community helpers like libraries and senior centers.

In the age of AI, innovation shouldn’t be a tax on the aging brain – it should help bridge the digital divide.

Debaleena Chattopadhyay receives funding from NSF, NIH, and CDC.

– ref. Constant technology changes throw seniors a curve – and add to caregivers’ load – https://theconversation.com/constant-technology-changes-throw-seniors-a-curve-and-add-to-caregivers-load-274814