Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ashley Sanchez, Associate Professor of Immigration, University of Notre Dame

The Department of Homeland Security issued a policy memo in February 2026 that could lead to the detention of refugees who are legally in the country.

The new policy states that “DHS may arrest and detain a refugee who has lived in the United States for at least one year and has not yet acquired” lawful permanent resident status. Approximately 100,000 refugees could be at risk for such arrest and detention.

The policy rescinds a 2010 DHS policy that limited the agency’s ability to arrest refugees. The 2010 policy was cited in a 2026 court order that temporarily prohibited agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting refugees in Minnesota in an effort to root out cases of fraud in the refugee admissions process.

As an immigration scholar, I believe the new DHS memo constitutes a massive departure from previous policy – one that could result in the detention of thousands of people who have lawful immigration status.

To better understand the new DHS policy and the change it represents, it’s helpful to clarify what it means to be a refugee.

Refugees flee persecution

Refugees flee their countries to escape persecution due to their race, religion, nationality or political opinion. Under U.S. immigration law, a refugee is someone who arrived in the U.S. through an official U.S. resettlement process.

After registering as a refugee abroad, the process for being resettled in the U.S. can take years – sometimes decades – and requires rigorous background checks.

Upon arrival, refugees are permitted to live and work indefinitely in the U.S. They are also eligible to “adjust” their immigration status to lawful permanent resident, also known as a “green card,” after one year in the country.

At issue with the new DHS policy is the interpretation of Section 209 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the statute that governs refugee adjustments and moves them from refugee status to lawful permanent resident.

Section 209 states that refugees who have been physically present in the U.S. for one year and haven’t yet received lawful permanent resident status “shall, at the end of such year period, return or be returned to the custody of DHS for inspection and admission” as a lawful permanent resident.

Historically, this has meant that refugees are required to undergo a secondary screening, through an interview or paper application, before receiving their green cards.

But DHS is now interpreting the language in Section 209 to impose a duty on refugees to voluntarily return to DHS custody – which it defines as detention – after one year in the country. This is despite the fact that refugees are not even eligible for legal permanent resident status until they have been in the country for a full year, putting refugees in an impossible situation.

Essentially, every refugee could face imprisonment unless immigration officials review and approve their green card applications at exactly the one-year mark.

History of refugee policy

The language in Section 209 arose after the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, a law that created our current refugee resettlement framework. Prior to this, there was no fixed legal mechanism for resettling refugees in the U.S.

Instead, the government responded to humanitarian crises largely on an ad hoc basis. It temporarily allowed people into the U.S. from Vietnam and Cuba.

Once here, those individuals had no long-term legal status unless Congress managed to pass after-the-fact legislation authorizing them to apply for green cards, as it did for Cubans with the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966.

The Refugee Act of 1980 was meant to solve this problem. It established a legal mechanism for refugee resettlement. It created a new refugee immigration status and ensured that refugees are eligible for permanent residency.

The earliest regulations implementing Section 209 show the “returned to custody” language was satisfied by attending an interview at a local immigration office. It was part of the green card process that was eventually replaced with a paper application.

The regulations implementing that change state that the “‘custody’ requirement for refugees applying for adjustment of status” can be met by filing an application.

What the DHS memo means for refugees

So, what normally happens if a refugee fails to submit their application?

Usually, nothing.

Until relatively recently, refugees weren’t even permitted to file for lawful permanent residence until after living in the country for a year.

Previous ICE guidance recognized that even if a refugee fails to file a green card application at all, they still maintain their lawful refugee immigration status. The failure to submit an application did not create any basis to deport a refugee. Therefore, absent other factors, immigration detention was inappropriate.

What will refugees do now?

Immigration attorneys are advising their refugee clients to file for lawful permanent status immediately, if they have not yet done so, to reduce the risk of detention. But that may not be enough.

The DHS memo states that a refugee “may be considered to have voluntarily returned to custody” if they filed their application and complied with any interviews. But the wording of the memo leaves open the door to detain anyone who has not yet had their application approved.

This leads to another issue, which is DHS administrative delays. The government currently takes approximately 12 months to approve refugee green card applications for requests it’s willing to process.

In January 2026, another DHS policy put an indefinite hold on all applications for individuals from a list of 39 countries. Consequently, applications for refugees from countries including Haiti, Afghanistan and Republic of the Congo are not being reviewed at all.

This means that refugees who have done everything right could be imprisoned indefinitely under this policy, because the U.S. government is refusing to judge their applications.

Against this backdrop, the Trump administration has capped refugee admissions for 2026 to a record low of 7,500.

At least one federal lawsuit has already been filed to challenge this new policy.

What happens now depends on how far DHS is willing to go and whether the courts allow it to do so.

Ashley Sanchez is the director of the Notre Dame Immigration Clinic, where she and her students represent refugees seeking permanent residency. She was previously the Supervising Attorney at Cleveland Catholic Charities, Migration and Refugee Services.

– ref. Legal refugees now face long detention after DHS reinterprets law on applying for a green card after a year – https://theconversation.com/legal-refugees-now-face-long-detention-after-dhs-reinterprets-law-on-applying-for-a-green-card-after-a-year-277054

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen Roll, Assistant Professor of Social Policy, Washington University in St. Louis

Childhood poverty in the U.S. fell to its lowest level in history in 2021. The fall was largely due to the expanded child tax credit and other COVID-19 pandemic supports that put cash directly in the hands of parents and lifted millions of children out of poverty.

Once these safety net changes expired at the end of 2021, childhood poverty rebounded, surging from 5% in 2021 to 13% in 2024.

While federal anti-poverty initiatives like the child tax credit expansion have stalled, states like Colorado are increasingly leveraging their tax codes to combat poverty. The Colorado Family Affordability Tax Credit took effect in tax year 2024. It is one of the most substantial and accessible state-level programs designed to support families, potentially offering thousands of dollars to low-income Colorado parents.

As economic policy researchers, we are conducting a three-year evaluation of the Colorado Family Affordability Tax Credit. We estimate that the credit reduces child poverty in Colorado by about 20%, and that reduction increases to 37% when combined with other state tax credits for low-income families, moving roughly 52,000 children above the poverty line.

Colorado’s approach is projected to have one of the strongest anti-poverty effects among state refundable child tax credits. If Colorado’s design were implemented in every U.S. state, child poverty nationwide could be reduced by more than one-third.

However, due to the complicated funding structure of the Colorado tax credit, the program is at risk. Changes in federal legislation created tax breaks for Colorado businesses, reducing state revenue projections. Since the credit is only available when Colorado state revenue growth is above 3%, these tax breaks caused the Family Affordability Tax Credit to be suspended for 2026, meaning the credit may not be part of families’ 2027 tax refunds.

Changes put Colorado families at risk

State anti-poverty programs are more vital now as planned cuts to federal safety net programs may substantially reduce the benefits available for low-income families. The 2025 federal tax breaks and spending cuts package expanded work requirements for the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and Medicaid – programs that millions of families rely on to meet their food and healthcare needs.

Following this change, most working-age adults enrolled in these programs must work 80 hours per month. Previously, Medicaid had no work requirements and SNAP had work requirement exemptions for older working-age adults. The law requires states to implement these changes by Jan. 1, 2027, though some states, such as Georgia and Ohio, are starting earlier. Proponents argue that work requirements encourage labor force participation and reduce government spending.

However, research finds that stricter work requirements reduce program participation more than they increase work. Changing enrollment systems requires retraining staff and providing outreach and education to enrollees, which is costly to implement.

As a result, many Americans may lose benefits not because of an unwillingness to work, but because of complex rules and red tape, which are difficult to manage while juggling unsteady jobs, caregiving obligations or health issues.

Federal changes to the safety net will hit Colorado especially hard. Early estimates from simulation models applying the new requirements show that roughly 298,000 Colorado families could lose their SNAP benefits, and 154,000 could lose Medicaid coverage. These cuts will disproportionately affect families with children, low-wage workers and families already struggling to make ends meet.

Amid soaring costs of living in the state, tighter eligibility doesn’t eliminate need. Instead, it forces families into difficult trade-offs. Those could include skipping meals, delaying medical care or falling behind on rent.

Using the tax system to support families

Colorado’s Family Affordability Tax Credit was implemented in 2024. The credit provides US$3,200 per child under age 6 and $2,400 per child ages 6 to 16, making it one of the most substantial state child tax credits.

Married couples filing jointly with eligible children who earn up to about $95,000 per year qualify for a portion of the credit. It is fully refundable, meaning families can receive the credit as a tax refund even if they do not owe anything in state taxes. Delivered through the tax system, access is simple and largely automatic for most households.

Parents who received the credit consistently told us in interviews that it made it easier for them to afford paying for their basic needs, such as food, housing, utilities and transportation. The reduced financial strain also improved their emotional well-being and family dynamics. As one caregiver noted, lower stress meant they weren’t in “hustle mode” just to keep the lights on.

The credit is “more than a dollar amount,” another said. It provides “peace of mind.”

Parents also highlighted the positive effects that receiving this tax credit had on children. The money allowed some to take their kids to activities and on outings, and allowed many parents to feel more present with their children.

“If I’m relaxed and my own cup is full, I can fill theirs,” said one parent. “It’s a ripple effect.”

More than 60% of the families we surveyed said they preferred the tax credit to other kinds of government benefits, citing its flexibility and ease of use. Unlike programs that require frequent reporting or compliance checks, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Colorado’s Family Affordability Tax Credit was often described as straightforward.

“I never feel it’s that difficult to get,” said one participant we interviewed.

Why tax credits work — and where this approach can fall short

Colorado’s tax-based approach to fighting poverty, which includes the Family Affordability Tax Credit, the Colorado Earned Income Tax Credit and the Colorado Child Tax Credit, offers flexible support via a familiar system. However, this approach has limitations.

Millions, including about 1 in 4 workers eligible for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit in Colorado, don’t file taxes. That means they may miss out on the tax credits.

Another issue is that lump-sum payments can be difficult to budget for people who rely on government benefits to make ends meet. Our research suggests that one-third of Colorado respondents preferred monthly payments. We’ve also found that two-thirds of federal child tax credit recipients in 2021 preferred monthly payments for budgeting reasons.

Why state investment in children matters

Although the full impacts of the Family Affordability Tax Credit on Colorado’s children are not yet known, a robust body of research points to the powerful role state policies can play in shaping young children’s development. Increased family income benefits children by enabling greater family resources, such as educational spending, and reducing parental stress.

Importantly, increasing spending that supports families with children can yield long-term benefits for society by improving children’s health, education, employment and economic stability later in life. Research shows a 10-to-1 return on investment from providing refundable tax credits to these families.

As federal support wanes, state policies, like Colorado’s, could be crucial for providing the stability children need to grow, learn and thrive. Unless Colorado makes the Family Affordability Tax Credit a permanent and reliable fixture of the state budget – as a recent proposal aims to do – the progress the state has made in reducing child poverty may only be temporary.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Stephen Roll receives funding from Gary Community Ventures.

Jenn Finders has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Leah Hamilton receives funding from Gary Community Ventures.

– ref. Federal benefits cuts are looming – here’s how Colorado is trying to protect families with children – https://theconversation.com/federal-benefits-cuts-are-looming-heres-how-colorado-is-trying-to-protect-families-with-children-275199

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jeanette Tran, Associate Professor of English, Drake University

Did you cry during “Hamnet”?

On social media, many viewers shared the overwhelming emotions elicited by the film, which has been nominated for eight Academy Awards.

One viewer commented on Reddit that the movie was an “out of body experience.” Another posted on X that it left them “covered in tears” and “ugly crying the entire drive home.” New York Times columnist Sarah Wildman wrote that the film left her “sobbing in my seat.”

In “Hamnet,” which director Chloé Zhao adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel of the same name, William Shakespeare’s youngest son, Hamnet, dies of the bubonic plague at the age of 11. The film traces the profound impact this loss has on his family, while also suggesting that Hamnet’s death influenced the genesis of Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece “Hamlet.”

But as critics debate whether “Hamnet” constitutes “grief porn” or is instead a brilliant field guide for how to move through the dark woods of sorrow, I found the film so compelling due to how the characters themselves grieve.

Much like Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “Hamnet” critiques the notion that grieving is somehow unmanly.

A mother mourns

“Hamnet” offers an intimate portrait of Shakespeare’s personal life, though aspects of the story are highly fictionalized.

In the film, Shakespeare and his wife, commonly known as Anne but renamed Agnes in “Hamnet,” fall in love, bear three children and suffer through the tragic death of 11-year-old Hamnet.

The couple’s marriage is tested by the contrasting ways they grieve Hamnet’s death. Agnes believes Shakespeare, who is in London writing plays when Hamnet dies, fails to grieve their son appropriately because of his desire to return to London so shortly after Hamnet’s death. At the same time, the film suggests Agnes would prefer to stay in the family’s dilapidated home forever because it tethers her more closely to Hamnet’s memory.

In a feminist move, the film notably centers Agnes, who’s been an afterthought in popular memory: She’s largely known for Shakespeare bequeathing her his “second best bed.”

Her perfect love for her children is made palpable through her vigilant care for them – in health, sickness and death.

And yet, “Hamnet” would not be “Hamnet” without Shakespeare and the way his failure to grieve affects Agnes. Agnes losing her son is the film’s central tragedy. But the second tragedy is her loss of faith in her husband, who suddenly strikes her as cold and overly career driven.

How could a man capable of writing poetry with such emotional depth be so clueless about how to grieve their dead son? For Agnes, this is no man at all.

Then and now, expressions of grief are often gendered.

In her 1996 study “Telling Tears in the English Renaissance,” literary scholar Marjory E. Lange explains how in Shakespeare’s time, men who cried might be perceived as being dramatic and weak for appropriating a female form of expression; those who shed tears in public – to borrow a contemporary term – could be accused of “sadfishing” for attention, even if they were genuinely overcome with emotion.

And in her monograph “Masculinity and Emotion in Early Modern English Literature,” literary scholar Jennifer Vaught also notes that men during Shakespeare’s life were expected to be stoic in their grief.

But Vaught complicates the idea that male weeping was universally frowned upon back then. She points to how emotion routinely serves as a springboard for virtuous action in the era’s literature. For example, in Shakespeare’s tragicomic romance “The Winter’s Tale,” King Leontes’ tears facilitate his evolution from jealous, abusive monarch to loving husband and father. Without this grief-induced transformation, the reunion with his wife and daughter – whom he believed were dead – would never have been possible.

To grieve or not to grieve?

Zhao’s “Hamnet” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” each explore the anxiety men can feel about expressing grief. But they also find ways to show how that grief can be both beautiful and productive.

In “Hamlet,” Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, challenges his masculinity due to his overwrought grieving style.

Hamlet’s grief is essentially the polar opposite of how Shakespeare’s is portrayed in “Hamnet”: When Hamlet enters the stage, he’s wearing an inky black coat, which symbolizes his ongoing mourning of his dead father. His mother, Gertrude, has moved on after just two months and has married her dead husband’s brother, Claudius.

Claudius is quick to chastise Hamlet for his “unmanly grief.” He acknowledges that “tis sweet and commendable” that Hamlet mourns his father, but to persist in grief amounts to a weakness of heart, reason and faith. Why mourn death when it is so common and perhaps even willed by God? Instead of crying, Claudius suggests Hamlet profess, “This must be so.”

“Hamlet” reveals how grieving men are held to different standards than women, and that these fluctuating standards can be contradictory and confusing.

It isn’t that Zhao’s Shakespeare doesn’t feel Hamnet’s loss with the same profundity that Agnes does; he just can’t express it in the same manner. In the same way Claudius suggests Hamlet must move on because the kingdom needs governance, Shakespeare insists on getting back to work to fulfill his artistic calling, provide for his family and, in a surprising twist, grieve his son.

‘Hamlet’ as a vehicle for grief

The satisfying resolution of the film reveals that Shakespeare has been living in deplorable conditions in London.

Agnes believed he was enjoying the trappings of his budding celebrity. But the small, disheveled room above the theater where he sleeps and writes suggests he has been mourning in private. He channels his private grief into his very public play “Hamlet,” which, when performed before Agnes, reads as a coded articulation of his love for her, their dead son and the playwright’s endless well of sorrow.

The play cleverly allows the deceased Hamnet to live on perpetually through the character Hamlet.

At the film’s start, Zhao cites literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt’s finding that Hamnet and Hamlet were the same name and entirely interchangeable, which makes Hamnet’s death and the birth of “Hamlet” feel inevitable. Zhao invites viewers to imagine that the character of Hamlet grieves openly in a way that Shakespeare does not have the courage or capacity to do. Though Claudius ridicules Hamlet for his emotional vulnerability, his grief drives him to avenge his father and emerge as a hero.

Even the most open-minded readers may fall into the trap of emasculating Hamlet, simply because he begins the play by visibly grieving.

I’ll sometimes ask my students or colleagues to tell me what they think Hamlet looks like, and their descriptions often play into anti-masculine stereotypes: The Hamlet of their imagination is usually slim, slight and a bit wan, much like actor David Tennant, who played Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 production. Franco Zeffirelli’s casting of Mel Gibson as Hamlet in his 1990 film adaption of Shakespeare’s play created a stir because it went so clearly against type.

Now I hope reading Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” alongside Zhao’s “Hamnet” can instill an appreciation for manly grief, one that expands the possibilities of who Hamlet can be.

It has become trendy to say real men cry. But Zhao’s film suggests they can also create emotionally devastating art that invites audiences to cry with and for them.

Jeanette Tran 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. ‘Hamnet’ is making audiences break down in tears – and upending beliefs about male grief – https://theconversation.com/hamnet-is-making-audiences-break-down-in-tears-and-upending-beliefs-about-male-grief-277474

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jennifer B. Nuzzo, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Pandemic Center, Brown University

In the three decades between 1993 and 2024, measles in the U.S. was relatively rare – a few hundred cases each year, at most. But suddenly, the disease has become so entrenched in American life that it sometimes fails to make headlines when a new outbreak erupts.

As of March 2026, measles has been continuously circulating around the U.S. for more than a year, starting with an outbreak in Texas that lasted from January to August 2025. Before that outbreak was declared over, an outbreak on the Utah and Arizona border began in August and is ongoing. An outbreak in South Carolina began in September, drastically increased in January 2026, and continues.

Thirty states have had measles cases this year; 47 have seen cases since the start of 2025. Health officials across the U.S. have confirmed 1,300 infections already this year as of March 6, putting the country on track to surpass 2025’s numbers, which were the highest in 35 years.

We study outbreak preparedness and response at Brown University’s Pandemic Center, and we view the return of measles in the U.S. as a grim signal of what’s to come.

Low levels of vaccination across the country mean measles outbreaks will continue to occur, needlessly hospitalizing and killing the unvaccinated. But beyond these harms, the disease’s resurgence serves as a serious warning about the country’s capacity to manage infectious disease threats of all kinds.

An eliminated disease returns

Measles’ return is no mystery: At its root is the falling vaccination rate.

Around 90% of the U.S. population has received the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, and in some regions of the country, the rate is below 60%. Since about 2019-2020, that overall number has dropped below the 95% needed for herd immunity. It is necessary to keep that rate nationally, but maintaining herd immunity at the local level is equally important in order to prevent measles from finding pockets of unvaccinated communities.

Countries that remain free of continuous transmission for 12 months are deemed to have eliminated measles – a designation the U.S. achieved in 2000. The Pan American Health Organization was scheduled to decide in April whether the U.S. should lose that designation, but the organization postponed its meeting until November.

Current trends suggest that both the U.S. and Mexico, which has also been battling the disease, may lose this status – as Canada did in November 2025. All three countries have seen their vaccination rates fall below the 95% threshold, and their outbreaks may share epidemiological links.

A serious, long-term threat to US health

By any measure, the ongoing U.S. measles outbreaks signal that the disease has returned in a way that will have serious adverse health consequences. In 2025, three people died from measles in the U.S. That is more than in any year since the disease’s elimination 25 years ago.

Of the country’s 2,283 confirmed measles cases in 2025, 11% were sick enough to be hospitalized. In South Carolina, where most measles cases have been reported in 2026, hospitals don’t have to report when patients are admitted due to measles complications, so the actual number of hospitalizations due to measles could be much higher.

People who recover from measles can experience complications such as pneumonia, which can lead to death, or encephalitis, which can later lead to deafness or intellectual disabilities from the brain swelling. The virus can also affect the immune system, making people more susceptible to other infections over the long term, even ones they’ve had before.

In rare instances – though more likely if someone is infected as a child – measles patients can develop a progressive dementia known as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE, anywhere from two to 10 years after their infection. SSPE always leads to death. This past year, a school-age child in Los Angeles died of this condition years after being infected with measles as an infant, before they were old enough to be vaccinated.

Measles is an economic scourge

Recurring outbreaks of measles in the U.S. will mean high economic costs. Countries have pursued measles elimination in part because of the clear economic benefits of stopping domestic transmission of the virus.

Studies have found that the cost of containing measles outbreaks is often as much as tens of thousands of dollars per case. One outbreak in Washington state in 2018-2019, which involved 72 cases – a small outbreak compared with what states are reporting now – cost US$3.2 million for the public health response, medical expenses and productivity losses. The Common Health Coalition found that a sustained 1% drop in MMR coverage would cost the U.S. billions across health care systems and the economy.

An opening for infectious disease

As concerning as recent outbreaks of measles have been, they herald a larger systemic problem.

How a country controls measles can be viewed as a proxy for how well it would control many other diseases. That’s because the steps for stopping the spread are the same: deploying vaccines to prevent infections, detecting and isolating cases when they occur, identifying exposed contacts of infected people and making sure they stay home if they’re likely to be contagious, and treating sick people safely.

But besides measles, we’ve already seen infections that were once controlled, like whooping cough, that rose sharply in 2024 and remained high in 2025 compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s because controlling the spread of many infectious diseases depends on the public’s trust in the basic components of public health. Declining MMR vaccine coverage reveals underlying challenges in public support for vaccines. Public confidence in the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also eroding, according to polling from 2023 to early 2026 by the health policy organization KFF. Less than half of the people polled trust the government even “a fair amount” to provide reliable vaccine information.

These growing cracks in the country’s public health armor will complicate efforts to protect Americans from future disease threats – whether an outbreak, a pandemic or a biological attack.

Jennifer B. Nuzzo receives general research funding from the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and NTI, to support general policy and practice research on infectious disease trends, science and practice. This support is not specific to the topic covered by this piece.

Andrea Uhlig 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. We study pandemics, and the resurgence of measles is a grim sign of what’s coming – https://theconversation.com/we-study-pandemics-and-the-resurgence-of-measles-is-a-grim-sign-of-whats-coming-275059

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Shalom Goldman, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Middlebury College

As the American and Israeli war with Iran unfolds, some American Christians are speaking of the conflict in biblical terms, mapping end-time prophecies on to current events in the Middle East.

In a sermon on March 1, 2026, for example, John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, described the war as part of a divine plan. “Prophetically, we’re right on cue,” he said. Later, he prayed that “God Almighty is brought onto the battlefield and the enemies of Zion and the enemies of the United States can be destroyed before our eyes. Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.”

Meanwhile, Christian singer and activist Sean Feucht referred to “the end-time open doors of what (God) is going to do in Iran when this regime is prayerfully removed.”

This type of apocalyptic thought has roots in the 19th century, when many American preachers turned toward more literal readings of the Bible. Those readings also emphasized the Bible’s account of God promising the “Holy Land” to Abraham and his descendants. But Christian Zionism’s influence on politics has grown over the past half-century, as I write about in my book “Zeal for Zion.” Today, that mindset seems to be moving into the halls of the American government and the military.

End of an age

“Dispensationalism” is a Protestant idea that human history is divided into different ages, or dispensations, that each unfold God’s plan for the world. Churches that embrace it, which tend to be evangelical, believe that the current dispensation is coming to an end. But that time can be ushered in only by great suffering, a period known as “Jacob’s tribulations.” Israel is the place where they believe these tribulations will begin, and where they will culminate in Jesus’ Second Coming.

In the U.S., the most powerful manifestation of dispensationalist and apocalyptic thought is Christian Zionism. The term refers to many Christians’ strong support for Israel, rooted in the biblical account of God’s covenant with the Hebrew people.

Even before Israel was established, conservative evangelicals have long been enamored of the idea of a Jewish return to Zion. In the 1940s, Protestant emphasis on these biblical narratives influenced American public opinion and helped make the case for a Jewish state.

But in the first two decades of Israel’s history, from 1948-68, fundamentalist Christians had few direct allies among either Israeli or American Jews. Neither evinced much interest in working with conservative Christians, some of whom were involved in missionary work. Why would Jewish groups ally themselves with Christians seeking to convert them?

Turning point

The outcomes of Israel’s 1967 war with a coalition of Arab states changed that situation. From Syria, Israel conquered and occupied the Golan Heights; and from Jordan, East Jerusalem and the West Bank of the Jordan. From Egypt, Israel won the Sinai Peninsula, from which it eventually withdrew, and the Gaza Strip.

As Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg noted, “The Six Day War did more than create a new political and military map in the Middle East. It also changed the mythic map, in a piece of the world where myths have always bent reality.”

In some evangelicals’ view, Israel’s victories in the Arab-Israeli wars were the triumph of divinely ordained good over evil. For them, God’s plan in history, revealed to humanity in the Bible, was now unfolding in the Holy Land. Many conservative Christians view the Jewish return to Israel as a prelude to the Second Coming.

This theology had appeared before the 1967 war. But afterward, it placed its hope on the fulfillment of a quite specific scenario: that the government of the Jewish state would rebuild the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and thus set the stage for the end of days. With the return of Jesus, the historic mission of the Jewish people would be fulfilled. Many Jews would perish, and the remnants would become the vanguard of believers in Jesus.

This scenario, once promoted by small groups within some Protestant denominations, had by the 1990s become widely diffused in popular culture. The “Left Behind” series, apocalyptic novels inspired by the biblical Book of Revelation, sold over 80 million copies.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hostility toward Islam also fueled Christian conservatives’ support for Israel. Televangelist Pat Robertson, for example, said Islam was “violent at its core.”

Around the same time, in a significant political shift, many American Jewish organizations welcomed Christian Zionists’ support. As Israel’s treatment of Palestinians attracted more criticism, the Israeli government and some Jewish groups in the U.S. began to rethink their relationship to conservative Christians.

In 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group that has historically promoted liberal and civil rights causes, took out an ad in major American newspapers. In that ad it reprinted a statement by Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, which was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Into government

Today, however, it seems Christian Zionism’s influence has risen to a new level in government.

Since the strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, 2026, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group, reported over 200 complaints about commanders telling troops across branches of the U.S. armed forces that the current war with Iran was part of a divine plan, invoking biblical ideas about the “end times.”

“Anytime Israel or the U.S. is involved in the Middle East, we get this stuff about Christian nationalists who’ve taken over our government, and certainly our U.S. military,” Air Force veteran Mikey Weinstein, the foundation’s president, told The Guardian.

A further sign of Christian Zionism moving into government was the 2025 appointment of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Among the most influential and prominent Christian Zionists, Huckabee, a Baptist minister, for years led “Holy Land tours” to Israel.

“I believe it is a special place because God made it special,” Huckabee told conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September 2025. “I believe the Scripture, Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side.”

Shalom Goldman 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 Iran war expands, some conservative Christians interpret the conflict through biblical prophecies – https://theconversation.com/as-iran-war-expands-some-conservative-christians-interpret-the-conflict-through-biblical-prophecies-277488

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jue Liang, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Case Western Reserve University

You’ve seen it in bookstores – the metallic turquoise spine peeking out from the shelf under “Eastern Religions.” Or, perhaps, another of its more understated editions rendered in muted tones. It is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” arguably the most well-known Tibetan Buddhist text outside Tibet.

It was first translated by American anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz in 1927. The book’s philosophy of death and rebirth as spiritual practice was adapted in 1964 by Timothy Leary, the founder of psychedelic studies, to guide psychedelic experiences. Actor Richard Gere narrated the audio version of the book in 2008, helping introduce it to a broad audience.

As someone who studies Tibetan Buddhism, I’m often asked: What is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”?

Most famous book in Tibetan Buddhism

In the Princeton University series “Lives of Great Religious Books,” there are only two texts representing Buddhism. One is the “Lotus Sutra,” the most popular Buddhist scripture on universal compassion, flexible teaching methods and potential for Buddhahood for all beings; the other is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

Originally, the book was not even called “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” – and this book is not just about death.

The full title of the original Tibetan text from the 14th century translates as “The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States.” In Tibetan, it is shortened to “Bardo Thodrol,” which loosely translated to “liberation upon hearing.”

The English title took off with Evans-Wentz’s first translation. But Evans-Wentz translated only a part of the book, and the translation was based on oral commentary rather than the Tibetan text.

The first full translation was done in 2007 by scholar and translator of Tibetan Buddhism Gyurme Dorje. It has been endorsed through an introduction written by the Dalai Lama, the most recognized Tibetan Buddhist leader of our time.

The 11 chapters of the book teach one how to seize every opportunity to become enlightened, even in the least possible place. It all starts with the teaching of bardo.

The six ‘bardos’

The Tibetan word bardo means “intermediate state” or “the state of being in-between.” In its origin in Indian Buddhist teachings, the bardo, or “antarabhava” in Sanskrit, refers to the time period between the end of this life and the beginning of the next.

However, in the Tibetan text “Bardo Thodrol,” there are six bardos: the bardo of living, the bardo of meditative concentration, the bardo of dreams, the bardo of the time of death, the bardo of reality and the bardo of rebirth.

Here, the bardo is no longer limited to the time after death, but refers to meaningful life stages that provide opportunities to transform our consciousness and habitual ways of living.

The bardo of living, as its name suggests, is the time between birth and death in the current lifetime. However, there are other bardos while one is alive: the bardo of meditative concentration and the bardo of dreams.

The bardo of dreams provides a reminder of the illusory nature of things in the dream state; the bardo of meditative concentration is a time to cultivate insight into the nature of things as empty. It prepares one for the inevitable bardo of the time of death.

Bardo of death and enlightenment

Finally, reaching the end of one life, the bardo of the time of death and the bardo of reality occupy the center of attention in the text.

The text “Bardo Thodrol” first discusses physical and mental signs of impending death and how to postpone it. Practices for averting death are based on the theory that human lives exist due to the coming together of natural, supernatural, human and divine elements. Therefore, performing rituals that realign these elements might allow one to delay death temporarily. It also includes rituals and practices to be performed by others after death, so that the dead can still become enlightened in the afterlife.

The deathbed and post-death rituals include performing devotional prayers to peaceful and wrathful deities oneself. The rituals also include requesting others to read the “Bardo Thodrol” to the deceased and post-death meditation by the deceased on the same peaceful and wrathful deities. The text also suggests wearing amulets that bring blessings and aid the transference of consciousness.

These rituals are grounded in the Buddhist and Hindu belief of “samsara”, or cycles of life and death. Here, the post-death period is not the end of all possibilities or a predetermined failure, but another opportunity for liberation in the next life.

Even the bardo of rebirth, where the yet-to-be-enlightened being enters another round of existence in samsara, is not the final point. Buddhists believe that previous interventions, such as prayers, rituals and meditative practice, could still be beneficial in providing better rebirths or positive karmic effects.

Some might see this death-focused meditation as a joyless outlook on life. But many have relied on the notion of the bardo for inspiration. Novelists George Saunders’ 2018 book “Lincoln in the Bardo” and Amie Barrodale’s 2025 “Trip” use the concept of bardo to narrate stories that matter for the living, showing that death is not the end for human relationships.

In “Lincoln in the Bardo,” Saunders, an American writer, imagines the bardo as a space explored by the protagonist, Willie Lincoln, the deceased 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln. Willie finds himself wandering in that space – a cemetery – encountering all kinds of spirits, ghosts and unsettled souls.

In “Trip,” Barrodale, another American novelist, tells the story of a mother who, after her sudden death, travels around the world to search for her son, who was lost at sea with a stranger. Both novels unfold in the post-death realm, where spirits sometimes are believed to speak but are rarely seen.

Lessons from the ‘Bardo Thodrol’

This way of thinking about the process of life as a series of bardos are intended to teach two lessons. One, challenging times, such as death, do not have to be an end point. Rather, if we think of them as a step into something new, we might be able to seize the opportunity to transform ourselves.

The “Bardo Thodrol” teaches its practitioner to recognize the importance of now. It instructs:

Having obtained a previous human body, this one time
I do not have the luxury of remaining on a distracted path.

Two, we live in constantly shifting contexts that require us to adapt accordingly. While the bardo of living calls for “renouncing laziness,” the bardo of dreams invites one to leave behind the “corpse-like, insensitive sleep of delusion.”

In other words, one needs to recognize the appropriate time and place for different practices. For example, a time usually marked by slumber might be countered with diligence, while a time of dedicated attention could be harnessed for deeper reflection.

Even in the bardo of rebirth, where one might be discouraged by the prospect of death, people need to keep in mind that their good actions in past lives could still have a positive effect for the current situation.

Not everyone may believe in samsara, the notion that we live on for innumerable lifetimes. However, the teaching from the “Bardo Thodrol” still applies – the moment of uncertainty or finality is not a source of fear but an opportunity for profound transformation.

Jue Liang 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. ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead’ is actually not just about death – https://theconversation.com/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-is-actually-not-just-about-death-247174

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

Despite the scale of its military assault on Iran, the Trump administration’s reasons for entering into war have been inconsistent and vague, from regime change to the destruction of nuclear weapons, preempting military action by Israel, or the more chilling decree of following “God’s divine plan.”

Politicians, pundits and even social media users have been quick to point out the contradictions of these justifications – regime change is impossible from the air, especially when you kill the alternatives, and weren’t those nuclear weapons already destroyed?

But the “why” for entering into war matters beyond scoring political points.

Why, and how, a president engages in military action has serious implications for the constitutional authority of any wartime action and, specifically, whether Congress has any hope of checking the warmaking of a president.

War powers and ‘imminent threats’

Under Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war.

One way around this, as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have half-heartedly attempted, is to avoid calling this conflict a “war.” The messaging didn’t stick. In fact, President Donald Trump has already used the term repeatedly.

The more viable option for sidestepping the need to have Congress declare a war is for the president to claim authority under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which grants a president the power to involve the armed forced in “hostilities” or “potential hostilities” without congressional approval only under extraordinary conditions of “imminent threat.”

At least one member of the administration appears to understand this nuance: Secretary of State Marco Rubio – notably, a former member of Congress himself. Rubio used the specific terminology “imminent threat” when discussing why the Trump administration began the bombing.

Absent a truly imminent threat, the president is required by the resolution to “consult regularly” with Congress before and after engaging in military action. Importantly, the military action is limited to 60 days, during which the president must “report to the Congress periodically” with updates to keep the legislative branch informed.

After 60 days, the president must, the resolution says, “terminate any use of United States Armed Forces.” If a president wants to wage a war longer than that, that requires an additional declaration by Congress. Such a declaration would require votes similar to a bill being passed.

In 2002, for example, after initiating a “war on terror,” President George W. Bush eventually turned to Congress to pass the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq. This permitted Bush to send troops into Iraq and further pursue a war that would last a decade.

In today’s case, by claiming that the Iranian regime was posing an imminent threat to the United States, the president can more easily circumvent congressional approval for military action and then turn to Congress after the fact if further action is needed.

As we recently discussed on our podcast about Congress, “Highway to Hill,” Congress has been continually ceding its power to the executive branch for decades. Deflection on military authority goes back even further: Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II – yes, despite involvement in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and many other places. But the Constitution doesn’t mince words on who’s responsible for entering the U.S. into war: Congress.

And how this war is ultimately framed by the White House has implications for the types of oversight Congress can perform to limit or curtail military action.

The limited powers of the war powers resolution

Congress, seemingly caught off guard by the Trump administration’s actions in Iran, has responded in a few ways. Perhaps unsurprisingly, responses have fallen largely along party lines.

Following the initial bombings, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, introduced a war powers resolution to prevent further military action in Iran. In the House, U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, introduced a similar bipartisan resolution. The votes failed in both chambers despite overwhelming support from Democrats.

On the Republican side, Rubio’s explanation for the military action seemed to appease many key members of Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, claimed the president had the authority to move forward with military action in Iran.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said that any congressional attempt to limit the president’s warmaking power would be “frightening” and “dangerous.”

Public accountability in congressional hearings

But Congress has two more traditional and frequently used oversight tools at its disposal: oversight hearings and the power of the purse.

Oversight hearings provide members of Congress an opportunity to not only question and investigate the executive branch’s activity, but also to provide their constituents with this fact-finding work and draw attention to policy issues. As some recent oversight hearings indicate, these can also be opportunities for partisan jabs and “made for TV” moments.

But there is evidence that they produce results.

Following tense oversight hearings on excessive spending in the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Kristi Noem was fired from her position in early March 2026.

In the 1970s, the Church Committee – named for its formidable chair, U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho – held extensive hearings that included eye-opening testimony about clandestine U.S. intelligence activities abroad and domestically. The Church Committee recommended, and Congress subsequently enacted, dozens of sweeping reforms to foreign intelligence collection activities, as well as restraints on future efforts by the U.S. government to assassinate people.

Although the Trump administration has provided closed-door briefings to members of Congress, Democratic senators are asking for more. They are calling for Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Rubio to come before congressional committees to explain their reasoning and plans for the Iran war.

Not only do oversight hearings provide members of Congress with an opportunity to investigate and question an administration’s actions, but they bring that discussion to the public. This transparency provides constituents with information about how their tax dollars are being spent, what their members of Congress think, and may even sway public opinion.

Power of the purse

But perhaps the most powerful tool that Congress has is its power of the purse, outlined in Article 1 of the Constitution.

Military actions in Iran are already costing an estimated US$1 billion a day, or as U.S. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican House Appropriations Committee chair, put it: “a lot.”

As the war drags on, the Trump administration will need more money – money that only Congress can dole out. Unlike war powers resolutions, which in this case would limit military action after the fact, new spending cannot occur until Congress writes and passes legislation appropriating additional funds.

But this would constitute a blank check for a foreign war. And that might be too much to ask of members of Congress in both parties, particularly as the U.S. faces a historic deficit and cuts to safety net programs.

And as public opinion on both military action in Iran and the state of the economy continues to sour, a vote for more military spending might well overtax any remaining goodwill of voters and members of Congress alike.

In fact, the political pressure on Congress to put its foot down could become so immense that lawmakers may have to do something – like their job.

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. Congress still has ways to throttle back Trump’s war with Iran – and to ask questions – https://theconversation.com/congress-still-has-ways-to-throttle-back-trumps-war-with-iran-and-to-ask-questions-277813

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Cian T. McMahon, Professor of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The Continental Army’s winter encampment at Valley Forge, between December 1777 and June 1778, is the stuff of legend. Chased out of Philadelphia by the British Army, George Washington and over 12,000 American troops retreated to Valley Forge, where they spent six long months harried by hunger, disease and the bitter cold.

In this context of frayed nerves and short tempers, a scuffle arose when some of the native-born soldiers antagonized the Irish recruits by dragging an effigy of a “stuffed Paddy” through camp on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1778. The Irish, outraged at the sight of their patron saint being mocked, rose up to meet the challenge with their fists.

But George Washington quickly responded by claiming, “I, too, am a lover of St. Patrick’s Day.” He ordered an extra glass of grog for every man, “and thus all made merry and were good friends.”

By the late 1770s, people had been commemorating the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death – reputedly on March 17, 461 – for over a thousand years. Irish immigrants brought the tradition with them when they moved to North America, and officers in the Continental Army regularly used the holiday to bring glimmers of cheer to their cold and gloomy camps.

‘Till the nation is free’

In Morristown, New Jersey, in 1780, for example, Col. Francis Johnston insisted that “the celebration of (St. Patrick’s) Day should not pass by without having a little rum issued to the troops,” and he bought a small barrel to prove it. Accounts of the party were published in local newspapers.

“The whole army celebrated the day with that decorum which is characteristic of them, and which evidenced their attachment and unfeigned regard to the valiant Irish nation,” said an eyewitness. The soldiers’ dual loyalties to Ireland and America were reflected in the toasts they drank that day.

Cheers were raised for George Washington and “the American army,” but also for Irish patriots such as Henry Grattan and Henry Flood. “May the field pieces of Ireland bellow,” proclaimed one soldier, “till the nation is free.”

As the author of a forthcoming book on the global history of St. Patrick’s Day, the wartime popularity of St. Patrick’s Day does not strike me as surprising. Irish immigrants made up a sizable fraction of George Washington’s Continental Army during the American Revolution, partly because the war came on the heels of the first wave of modern mass migration from Ireland, which lasted from the early 1720s to the mid-1770s.

As a result, Irish newcomers, especially Presbyterians from Ulster, were overrepresented in the Middle Colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey when the war broke out. Their disproportionate enlistment accounts for the fact that Pennsylvania’s collection of infantry regiments and companies was nicknamed the “Line of Ireland” during the conflict.

Yet focusing on Irish patriots tells only half the story of what St. Patrick’s Day meant during the Revolutionary War era.

Plenty of Irishmen served as British redcoats throughout the war too.

‘Naturally gallant and loyal’

On March 17, 1779, 2½ years after capturing New York, the British army published a recruiting advertisement in the city’s Royal Gazette newspaper.

“All Gentlemen Natives of Ireland are invited to join the Volunteers of Ireland, commanded by their Countryman, Lord Rawdon,” the ad announced. Francis Rawdon, the scion of a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant family from County Down in the north of Ireland, was a dynamic army officer in his mid-20s and the perfect figurehead for this new regiment.

Later that evening, these Irish loyalists celebrated St. Patrick’s Day “with their accustomed Hilarity,” noted a local journalist. Lord Rawdon’s Volunteers of Ireland regiment led the way with a parade, followed by a banquet.

“The soldierly Appearance of the men, their Order of March, Hand in Hand, being all NATIVES OF IRELAND, had a striking effect,” gushed the New-York Gazette. Being “naturally gallant and loyal,” the Irish will always “crowd with Ardour to stand forth in the Cause of their King, of their Country, and of real, honest, general Liberty.”

To be Irish in New York in 1779 meant being loyal to the crown. But when the British evacuated New York four years later, they took their red coats – and their loyalist St. Patrick’s Days – with them.

Irish America’s many stories

In time, memories of these pro-British parades and banquets proved unseemly in the fledgling republic. They were subsequently written out of most histories of Irish America. The official website of the world-famous Manhattan St. Patrick’s Day parade, for example, makes no mention of these loyalist processions.

Yet taking a closer look at these forgotten chapters of history is important because it reminds us that there has always been a debate over what it means to truly “be Irish” in America.

In the 1770s, it was a conflict over loyalty to the crown. Today, it can mean disagreements about abortion, gun control or immigrants’ rights.

The truth lies buried in the many stories of Irish America.

Cian T. McMahon received funding for this project through a Hibernian Research Award from the Center for the Study of American Catholicism (CUSHWA).

– ref. Patriots and loyalists both rallied around St. Patrick’s Day during the Revolutionary War – https://theconversation.com/patriots-and-loyalists-both-rallied-around-st-patricks-day-during-the-revolutionary-war-274807

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andres Bustamante, Associate Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine

Use of generative artificial intelligence technology is already widespread in K-12 schools and higher education. Now, AI technologies such as conversational agents and tablet-based assessments are starting to make their way toward early childhood education.

One concern with AI in a prekindergarten setting is that the technology will replace or disrupt the rich interactions and deep relational bonds between children and their caregivers. Another worry is that AI systems will reproduce discrimination related to race, gender and socioeconomic status, which could reinforce stereotypes and biases.

What if, instead, this technology was used to uplift marginalized voices rather than silence them?

We are part of a team of developmental psychologists, learning scientists, early childhood educators and community leaders creating AI-based tools designed to enrich caregiver-child interactions. Instead of replacing parents, we use technology to involve them in the creation of educational material, allowing them to bring their lived experience to their child’s learning.

Early childhood education research shows that children engage more deeply and learn more effectively when learning environments build on their experiences and connect to their families’ cultural practices. Our work with generative AI builds on a larger set of research projects where we codesign early learning spaces with children and families.

Culture in early learning

Many technologies marginalize low-income, immigrant and racially minoritized families in their children’s education. Our work is designed to do the opposite: amplify the voices of families and empower them to be the drivers of their children’s learning.

It is grounded in a long-term partnership between the University of California Irvine School of Education and the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative, or SAELI, a grassroots community organization focused on early education led by over 300 families in Santa Ana, California, a predominately Latino community.

In a recent project, we partnered with researchers from UC Irvine, Harvard and University of Michigan to design e-books with families from SAELI and En Nuestra Lengua, a nonprofit that runs early education programs for Spanish speakers in Michigan. We convened families in Santa Ana and Michigan and supported them in using generative AI to produce content that serves as a “first draft” of an educational e-book.

For example, families in our sessions talked about how their children use technology to stay connected to grandparents who still live in their home countries. That theme inspired a group of parents to write a story – by writing a series of prompts into ChatGPT using a laptop – about a young boy who video-chats with his grandfather in Mexico to learn how to grow corn. Parents also used an AI image generator to produce concept art for the stories.

After families reviewed the images, they highlighted the reasons they liked certain parts and disliked others and revised the prompts to make images that represented their ideas. Our team revised the stories, connected them with pre-K science learning standards and then collaborated with a visual artist, Ernesto Domecq Menéndez, who used the AI-generated images as inspiration for the books’ illustrations.

As part of another story, families noted that AI-generated content can reflect a common assumption in the U.S. – that “Latino” means “Mexican.” In response, families emphasized the diversity of Latin America by using generative AI to create a story about children from different countries who explore the science of cooking as they share family recipes for gorditas, arepas and pupusas. To an untrained eye the dishes look similar, but the families highlighted the distinct ingredients, preparation techniques and meanings behind each one. We worked with the families to tweak the AI prompt until they were happy with the story draft output.

Taken together, these examples show how pairing community collaboration with AI tools can create early educational content that reflects families’ experiences – and represent them the way they want to be seen. When children and families see themselves and their communities represented in STEM learning experiences, it can foster positive identity and self-efficacy in STEM domains.

AI as a conversational partner in learning

This project builds on previous work that integrated AI conversational agents, such as Siri or Alexa, into children’s media so the main character of the story can ask children questions to reinforce learning.

We are embedding the same technology in these e-books so the characters in the story can ask children questions at key learning moments and engage in back-and-forth conversation to reinforce the big science learning goals.

This approach builds on a long history of developmental research that shows strategically placed questions during book reading lead to increased learning and improve children’s language skills.

Learning and connection in the community

We have also applied this approach in a community health clinic. In an ongoing project, we are partnering with SAELI families and researchers from UC Irvine, Boston College and University of Illinois Chicago to incorporate playful learning activities into the waiting rooms at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

In codesign sessions with families and providers, one of the main themes that emerged was the desire to build a strong sense of community at the clinic. One family suggested we design a “chismografo,” or a shared “gossip notebook,” that was popular in Latin America in the 1990s and early 2000s. In those sessions, providers also shared tensions of wanting to be able to connect with families and build a relationship but also needing to minimize wait times.

In response, we plan to use a simple AI platform to prompt families waiting to see their pediatrician to dictate into a tablet the ways they cook, play and relax before bedtime. The AI will summarize the information families share and create artifacts like badges that can be displayed on a clinic “chismografo” so families can learn about each other.

The AI will also provide a summary to the pediatrician so they can learn something about the family and engage in conversation around nutrition, physical activity and sleep routines that build from families’ everyday practices. In this way, AI is used as a tool to enhance communication and connection between families and providers.

Customizing and scaling up

While the examples provided here are unique to the communities that designed them, and might not resonate in the same way in other places, AI offers a platform for educators and families to create their own resources and experiences.

This approach addresses a major tension in education research – cocreating educational resources with the people they are intended for enhances usability, meaningfulness and effectiveness. However, when you customize or adapt a resource for a specific community or population, it can become less usable in other places. Generative AI can be used to continuously design and adapt early learning resources, customizing them for different communities.

Critically, this work is best done in partnerships between families, educators, early learning researchers, artists and technology designers whose collective expertise leads to products that none of them could have made on their own.

The research referenced in this article was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program Award #2415882 and the Heising-Simons Foundation Award #2024-5105.

Aria Gastón-Panthaki 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. Generative AI can play a role uplifting family and community in early childhood education – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-can-play-a-role-uplifting-family-and-community-in-early-childhood-education-272237

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brendan Cantwell, Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

Several prominent universities, including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, made headlines in 2025 in a dizzying back-and-forth with the federal government. The Trump administration cut large amounts of research funding to universities. Some pushed back, and others hatched settlements to get the money restored.

So how have these confrontations between higher education and the White House played out over the past year, now that they have dropped out of the spotlight?

Amy Lieberman, education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Brendan Cantwell, a scholar of higher education at Michigan State University, to understand how the Trump administration is adopting a more subtle tactic to block funding to universities.

Where does Trump’s attempt to withdraw funding from universities stand?

Several universities entered into settlements with the Trump administration in 2025 – including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and Brown University – to restore research funding the government pulled. We don’t really know how those deals are being enforced. They appear to be working, in the sense that the government has not complained and the schools have received the targeted funding that the government canceled.

In another case, Harvard University never entered into a deal with the Trump administration and instead sued the government in April 2025 to block a US$2.7 billion funding freeze. Federal courts restored Harvard’s funding, but we don’t have a lot of specific knowledge on how this funding was restored. The government appealed this ruling in December 2025.

In October, the administration also proposed an agreement, called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, that would provide funding advantages for universities that agreed to change their admissions practices to cap the percentage of international students that they enroll, among other policy shifts.

There was almost universal skepticism and condemnation of this deal among schools, and it fell apart, aside from a few small schools not initially invited that said they would sign on.

What is your research focused on right now?

I am thinking about how the administration is shifting from making targeted deals with universities and more toward using legislative and rule-making processes to achieve its goals.

These deals with universities in 2025 were really unusual. I think they are going to become less and less effective for the administration, as they face losses in court. Universities have also realized that they could not agree to a deal with the administration and still prevail.

Now, we are seeing the administration impose its priorities in other ways, in part through President Donald Trump’s 2025 big tax and spending cuts and new rules at the Department of Education. This approach retains the Trump administration’s ideological preferences, but uses more normal routes.

Are they placing more limits on research funding, or what is the goal?

The Trump administration in 2025 wanted to reduce funding dramatically to the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation – and to NASA, in particular. Congress rejected those requests and instead produced what was essentially a level funding picture for university research.

What isn’t clear is how much of the money appropriated by Congress is going to make its way into new grants for research. Much of the funding that Congress appropriated, so far, has not been released.

We know that in 2025, federal agencies made fewer grants than in past years. The grants the government did make tended to be a bit larger, and winning a grant became more competitive. This approach gives the administration more flexibility in funding the kinds of projects that it prefers.

In my assessment, it seems likely that the government will do the same again this year. The administration may also attempt to withhold a portion of the money that Congress appropriated for scientific research.

Over the course of the year, we are going to see how this plays out. Is the administration just dragging its feet, using whatever administrative levers it has to slow-walk things? Or, is it going to attempt to divert research funding to other priorities and now spend it in a way that Congress did not appropriate? We don’t really know. I do know that universities and scientific research organizations are very concerned about this possibility.

If this money doesn’t start to flow, we probably will see legal challenges from universities and scientific organizations.

How long does it take for delayed funding to become evident in research?

The effects are almost immediate and then build over time.

Some of the grants we expected to be awarded in the first two months of the year have not been awarded. In 2025, thousands of grants were canceled and some agencies made up to 25% fewer grants than they had awarded in prior years.

As the year goes on, unless the pace of awards increases, we can expect the total amount of money that goes out to researchers to be even lower than it was in 2025.

This is the bottom line: Congress continues to fund research, but all money is not making its way to researchers.

What does it look like as the Trump administration shifts its tactics?

One of the ways the administration seems like it will go after universities is by making it harder for students to qualify for student loans. The tax and spending cuts bill, for example, put caps on federal student loan borrowing at the graduate level.

This is more of a normal conservative idea; that the availability of student loans has encouraged universities to offer more low-quality programs at the undergraduate and graduate level which don’t help students. I think these conservative ideas with some mainstream appeal may be the focus of the administration moving forward, in addition to administrative foot-dragging.

Overall, I think that we may see less of these big, direct confrontations between the Trump administration and universities. It worked in the sense that they got some initial concessions from universities, but it is not really clear if those concessions amounted to a major victory for the administration.

The political boundaries of research are also becoming narrower. You can’t do climate research and expect to get federal funding right now.

I think that the federal government is going to continue to restrict money from universities. There is going to be this persistent, progressive shrinking of research funding. But the administration has either not been willing or able to impose a sudden collapse of university funding and bring schools to their knees.

Brendan Cantwell 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. Universities survived Trump’s 2025 funding freeze, but the money still isn’t flowing to researchers – https://theconversation.com/universities-survived-trumps-2025-funding-freeze-but-the-money-still-isnt-flowing-to-researchers-277716