Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sarah Lockhart, PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Ecology, University of Florida

Florida added nearly 3 million residents from 2010-2020, making it the fastest-growing state in the United States during that time.

On any given day, a Florida county commission or municipality may approve a new subdivision, a transportation agency may select the route of a highway expansion, or a rancher may decide whether to sell land for development. As new neighborhoods, roads and infrastructure spread across the state, they reshape not only communities but also the natural systems wildlife depends on.

Each decision is local and incremental. But taken together, these choices determine whether wildlife can move across Florida’s landscapes to find food, reproduce and adapt to a changing climate – or become isolated in shrinking fragments of habitat.

In 2011, Florida eliminated the Department of Community Affairs, which had monitored and coordinated land use and development throughout the state. Since then, there has been limited oversight of local and county governments when it comes to urban planning and land development.

As conservation researchers, we study how scientific data can support real-world planning decisions. That led us to develop the Florida Ecological Connectivity Planning Viewer in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Florida’s Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and GeoPlan Center. We call it the EcoCon.

This online mapping platform helps decision-makers and conservationists understand how land across Florida fits together as a connected ecological network. Seeing this network alongside a suite of other related planning and conservation data can help them avoid impacts that would disrupt or disconnect it.

A cautionary tale from the ‘Last Green Thread’

Scientists have known for decades that connected landscapes benefit both animals and people. Large, connected ecosystems help protect drinking water supplies, reduce flooding and support agriculture, recreation and tourism. They can also be more resilient to climate pressures, such as stronger storms and changing rainfall patterns.

The challenge today is not proving that connectivity matters. It is helping people see how thousands of everyday land-use decisions add up to create, or break, those connections.

A clear example of this challenge can be found in central Florida, about 20 miles southwest of Orlando. Since the early 1990s, conservation scientists have identified a narrow stretch of land known as the “Last Green Thread.” This thread is one of the few remaining opportunities to maintain a continuous ecological connection between protected lands in the Green Swamp, the source of four of Florida’s rivers, and the headwaters of the Everglades to the south.

This corridor still remains. But it is a shrinking sliver on its way to completely disappearing as land use decisions continue to make it less functional. An intact corridor helps species such as the Florida black bear, and potentially the endangered Florida panther, move between habitats. It also benefits other animals that are sensitive to fragmentation, including bobcats, otters, scrub jays, alligators and gopher tortoises.

No single decision has eliminated this corridor. Over time, however, development has gradually filled in significant parts of this landscape. Subdivisions and infrastructure have spread across multiple private properties and public jurisdictions. The result is a fragmented pathway between major conservation areas in south and central Florida.

A new way to see the landscape

Researchers have spent decades mapping wildlife habitat and ecological connections using geographic information systems. These digital tools help identify where important ecological links exist across landscapes.

But this data has not always been easy for planners, communities and landowners to access. Information may be scattered across agencies, universities and technical reports, or it may require expensive software tools and expertise to access.

When different decision-makers rely on different maps – or none at all – it becomes difficult to see how individual land-use decisions affect the larger ecological network.

This is where the EcoCon comes in.

With a few clicks, users can turn different layers on and off. These layers include wildlife movement pathways, protected conservation lands, wildlife crossings, water resources, agricultural areas and more. Instead of looking at these pieces separately, the EcoCon shows how they overlap.

The wildlife connectivity data comes from scientific models that estimate how animals move across the landscape. Using information such as land cover, habitat quality and barriers, including roads and development, these models highlight the routes animals are most likely to take between large natural areas.

By bringing this information together in a single, easy-to-use, publicly accessible mapping tool, the EcoCon helps planners see how proposed changes to the landscape might affect wildlife and natural resources.

Using the EcoCon isn’t about stopping development. Rather, it gives decision-makers a clearer picture so they can make informed, coordinated plans for growth in ways that better support both people and wildlife.

Tools like the EcoCon can also support broader conservation initiatives such as the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a statewide network of connected public and private lands that helps wildlife move across the state.

In fast-growing Florida, this visibility may be one of the most important tools for ensuring that wildlife and people can continue to share the same landscape in a rapidly changing world.

Sarah Lockhart works for the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning. Her team receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

Thomas Hoctor receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

– ref. How a new mapping tool helps Florida planners protect wildlife corridors as the state grows – https://theconversation.com/how-a-new-mapping-tool-helps-florida-planners-protect-wildlife-corridors-as-the-state-grows-276833

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Carrie Sampson, Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University

Election races for local school boards have become hotly contested in many states as they have become forums for debates over gender-identity discussions, immigrant students and even prayer at school events.

Liberal candidates largely swept school board elections on April 7, 2026, in politically contentious districts in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alaska and Oklahoma, where book bans, gender identity and prayer during school events were on the table.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Carrie Sampson, a scholar of educational leadership and policy with an emphasis on school boards, to understand what school board members do and why these local elections carry weight for many parents, teachers and students.

What are district school boards?

School boards are the governing organization for local school districts. There are typically anywhere from five to 21 members of a school board in a district. On average, there are seven to nine members on a school board.

Overall, there are approximately 13,000 school districts and about 90,000 local school board members in the United States.

School board members are typically elected, but sometimes they are appointed by mayors or other local or state officials. They are representatives of their local communities, as well as trustees who make governing decisions about school district budgets, hiring and other issues like a school district’s educational priorities.

School board elections typically have relatively low voter turnout. Research shows that nearly 40% of school board elections go uncontested.

The majority of school board members are unpaid, but some receive a small stipend for their work. A handful of school boards, like in Los Angeles, for example, receive a relatively large salary.

What does a school board member’s day-to-day work look like?

School boards typically meet twice a month, often to deliberate over issues such as budget or policy decisions.

One of a school board’s major jobs in most districts is hiring and firing a district superintendent, who effectively acts as the CEO of the district.

In terms of fiscal decisions, a school district administrator often presents what budget allocations should be for schools, and a school board votes to approve or disapprove that.

Most school boards create agendas and vote on a range of issues that are not particularly controversial, like whether the district will adopt an after-school program.

Why does a school board’s work matter?

School boards can make some critical decisions that impact the lives of students, parents and teachers. Many school districts are dealing with issues around school closures. Ultimately, school boards decide whether they are going to close a school in a district.

Many school districts are experiencing declining student enrollment, in part because of birth rate declines. People also have more and more school options to pick from, be it private schools, charter schools or homeschooling.

Within the past few years, school boards have also gained a lot of attention about whether they should ban particular books from districts, and whether they should ban or approve certain curriculum.

What other controversial issues have they taken on in the past few years?

Years before COVID-19, school boards in some conservative communities took on questions about which bathroom transgender students in public schools should use. Another big issue is whether schools should allow transgender students to participate on gendered sports teams.

During the pandemic, a rising number of communities began to see school boards as critical decision-makers. School boards were often making decisions about whether to close or reopen schools. They were also voting on requirements related to mask mandates or vaccines. Even people who didn’t live in certain school districts showed up at board meetings to advocate for certain COVID policies.

During the Black Lives Matter protest movement in 2020, some conservative communities started to speak out against critical race theory and their fear that it was being taught in K-12 schools. Most teachers don’t actually instruct on critical race theory.

Around this time, two major school advocacy organizations emerged nationwide: Moms for Liberty and Defending Education, formerly known as Parents Defending Education. These groups tried to elect conservative school board members to take on issues like book bans – and in some cases did so successfully.

My colleague Gabriela Lopez and I wrote a research paper in 2024 about people’s attempts to recall school board members. In 2021, we found, there was an all-time high of 545 school board members who faced recall, mostly because of mask mandates and other COVID-related issues.

Another trend was that police arrested or charged at least 59 people due to unrest at school board meetings from May 2021 through November 2022.

Are school boards taking on more controversial issues than they used to?

Every era has a point at which these controversial issues come to the school board level.

School boards made critical decisions around school desegregation in the 1950s through the 1970s. My research with colleagues on this topic shows that while many districts were legally mandated to desegregate schools, it was often school boards that voted on how these schools would be desegregated. Some school boards voted on policies that placed the burden on Black children and their families. One school board in Virginia even temporarily closed the schools completely to avoid desegregation.

Twenty to 30 years ago, many school boards faced tension over whether and how schools should teach sex ed.

Today, a lot of the political controversy about school boards is more widely known, for a few reasons. First, more communities have access to school board meetings, since many are video recorded. Second, social media has amplified what school boards do. There are also more outside organizations, such as local chapters of Moms for Liberty, that have been involved with school boards.

School boards taking on controversial issues are more likely to be in suburban and racially diverse school districts, compared to their rural or urban counterparts.

A report in 2024 found that the cost of conflict among school boards nationwide in 2023-24 was nearly $3.2 billion, when considering the amount of turnover or security needed for school board meetings.

Carrie Sampson 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. District school boards have become political hotbeds for book bans and more – here’s what they actually do – https://theconversation.com/district-school-boards-have-become-political-hotbeds-for-book-bans-and-more-heres-what-they-actually-do-279953

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Innovation in health care saves lives. But not all health innovations have enough evidence to actually benefit patients.

Barriers to innovation are often higher in illicit or restricted markets, including cannabis, stem cells and cryptocurrencies. Researchers face higher costs, limited access to raw materials and data, and stricter regulations.

Cannabis illustrates a particularly confusing tension between regulatory restrictions on one hand and research and innovation on the other.

While the U.S. federal government still classifies cannabis as having “no accepted medical use,” many states have legalized it for medical or recreational use. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services obtained a cannabis-related patent in 2003 covering potential medical uses of cannabis compounds for protecting the brain from damage or degeneration. The patent was exclusively licensed for commercialization.

Research and innovation on cannabis can take many forms. Clinical trials may study cannabis products as medical treatments, the effects of cannabis on its users, or factors related to abuse and dependence. Meanwhile, cannabis-related patents can be filed for wide-ranging purposes, such as chemical formulations, methods for production or new consumer products like edibles, beverages or vaporizers.

But do these innovations actually benefit consumers and patients?

We are economists studying how institutional changes affect innovation in different markets. Our recently published research found that legalization of recreational cannabis use appears to spur innovation, but primarily in ways that expand commercial opportunities rather than scientific understanding or health benefits for patients.

Cannabis’ evolving legality in the US

Cannabis is a plant that contains chemical compounds called cannabinoids. One such compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produces psychoactive effects, while another compound called cannabidiol, or CBD, is often used to relieve anxiety and pain. However, there has been insufficient evidence on how effective cannabis products are in treating medical conditions, as well as a lack of consistent medical and dosing guidance.

At the federal level in the U.S., cannabis has been classified as a Schedule I drug for over a half-century. This classification indicates that the federal government considers cannabis to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

As a Schedule I drug, there are significant restrictions on cannabis research. Researchers who seek to conduct cannabis-related clinical trials must obtain approval from both the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration, a process that can take over a year. They are also limited to using select varieties of cannabis obtained from federally authorized cannabis suppliers, and are generally prohibited from studying products available in state-authorized markets.

There are ongoing pushes to relax these restrictions. Meanwhile, cannabis has been legalized to varying extents in many states. California became the first state to pass a medical cannabis law in 1996, allowing qualified patients to grow, possess and use cannabis for medical purposes. Many states followed suit in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As of June 2025, 40 states allow medical cannabis use.

A number of states also allow recreational or nonmedical cannabis use among adults, which is regulated in similar ways to alcohol. Colorado and Washington enacted the first recreational cannabis laws in 2012, and there are 24 states that permit adults to use cannabis recreationally as of January 2026.

Altogether, the legal landscape for cannabis in the U.S. has varied considerably across states and over time. States with more permissive laws can lower the costs of medical research and product development with cannabis, even if federal drug scheduling continues to restrict access. For instance, one group of Washington State University researchers asked participants to independently purchase and smoke cannabis from a legal dispensary before returning to their lab for study.

State legalization and cannabis innovation

To systematically examine how state legalization affects cannabis-related innovation, we compiled and analyzed datasets tracking cannabis-related clinical trials and patent applications.

We distinguished different types of cannabis-related innovation. Specifically, we categorized cannabis-related clinical trials based on whether they focused on its potential as a treatment, its usage and effects, or its role in drug abuse. Similarly, we categorized cannabis-related patents based on whether they focused on chemical compounds, medical uses, methods or products.

We also assessed public health concerns across three measures: patents explicitly involving THC; patents with a high risk of misuse; and patents targeting consumers directly, such as high-potency formulations, edibles or vaporizers.

Then, we compared changes in cannabis-related innovation over time in states that legalized cannabis earlier with those in states that did so later or not at all. We measured innovation by counting the number of cannabis-related clinical trials and patent filings. We distinguished between medical and recreational legalization to assess how different policies affect innovation.

Overall, we found that when states legalize cannabis for recreational use, cannabis-related patents increase – but mostly in commercial-oriented areas rather than health-focused ones. Patents were concentrated in market-oriented innovations like cultivation equipment and consumer products, rather than in clinical or science-based research. We also found some evidence that these innovations may raise public health concerns.

Legalization did not result in meaningful increases in clinical trials. This suggests that barriers to cannabis-related clinical research – such as limited access to research-grade cannabis, limited funding and stigma around working with a federally controlled substance – remain substantial.

Gaps between research and product

As 420 – signifying April 20, a day celebrating cannabis culture – approaches each year, public attention turns toward the legal status of cannabis.

The legal landscape has evolved rapidly over the past few decades, and further changes are in the pipeline. Both the Biden and second Trump administrations have made efforts to reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III substance, which would indicate that it has an accepted medical use and low-to-moderate potential for dependence.

These reevaluations of the legality of cannabis come at a critical time. There has been an explosion of recreational cannabis products in recent years, including increasingly potent strains and a wider variety of ways to use cannabis. Meanwhile, critical research on the health and safety of cannabis use has lagged due to heavy restrictions accompanying Schedule I status.

This gap between medical research and product innovation can have significant public health consequences. The 2019 to 2020 outbreak of lung injuries related to e-cigarette or vape use was linked partly to the use of unregulated or illicit cannabis vaping products. These harms highlight the risks of allowing product innovation for controlled substances to outpace scientific understanding.

Policies that significantly reduce obstacles to clinical research can in turn help close the widening gap between cannabis markets and addressing their public health implications.

Lucy Xiaolu Wang receives funding from the Institute for Humane Studies through a small research grant and the SERN Applied Microeconomics Workshop.

Nathan W. Chan 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. Cannabis legalization spurs innovation, but not always in ways that benefit patients or public health – https://theconversation.com/cannabis-legalization-spurs-innovation-but-not-always-in-ways-that-benefit-patients-or-public-health-277422

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Keith M. Bellizzi, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut

When Maria looked at herself in the mirror for the first time after her mastectomy, she stood very still.

One hand rested on the bathroom counter. The other hovered near the flat space where her breast had been. The scar was raw and angry. The loss was quiet but enormous. Her body felt foreign.

In moments like these, people are often urged to be resilient – which can feel like being told to show no weakness, to push through no matter what. Or they imagine resilience as bouncing back: returning somehow unscathed to be the person you were before.

But standing in that bathroom, Maria knew there was no going back. And toughness wouldn’t change what had happened. The real question was how she could move forward, carrying this experience into her new reality.

Maria’s story, one I came to know personally, is far from unique. Loss, trauma and illness often bring the same wrenching questions of identity and the painful uncertainty of what comes next.

I’ve spent more than two decades studying resilience, particularly among individuals and families navigating these kinds of life-changing events. I am also a four-time cancer survivor and author of a new book, “Falling Forward: The New Science of Resilience and Personal Transformation.” If there is one myth I wish society would retire, it’s the idea that resilience means “toughness” or “bouncing back.”

Rethinking resilience based on research

Moments like Maria’s reveal something important: The way people tend to talk about resilience often doesn’t match how people actually live through adversity.

In popular culture, resilience is often equated with grit, toughness or relentless positivity. People celebrate the warrior, the fighter, the triumphant survivor.

But across research, clinical practice and lived experience, resilience is something far more nuanced, raw and human.

It’s not a personality trait that some people simply have and others lack. Decades of research show resilience is a dynamic process. It’s shaped by the small, everyday decisions and adjustments individuals make as they adapt to significant adversity while maintaining, or gradually regaining, their psychological and physical footing over time.

And importantly, resilience does not mean the absence of distress.

Research on people facing serious life disruptions shows that distress and resilience often coexist. For example, in my study of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors, participants reported being upset about finances, body image and disrupted life plans, while simultaneously highlighting positive changes, such as strengthened relationships and a greater sense of purpose.

Resilience, in other words, is not about erasing pain and suffering. It is about learning how to integrate difficult experiences into a life that continues forward.

How resilience really works

At one point, Maria told me she had started avoiding mirrors, intimacy, even conversations that made others uncomfortable.

“Well, you’re strong,” people would tell her. “Just stay positive. This too shall pass.”

But strength, she said, felt like a performance.

What ultimately shifted for Maria was not an increase in toughness. It was permission to grieve.

She began speaking openly about the loss of her breast; not just as a medical procedure but as a symbolic loss tied to identity, sexuality and womanhood. She joined a support group. She allowed herself to feel anger alongside gratitude for survival.

This kind of emotional processing turns out to be central to resilience.

My colleagues and I have found that people who actively process loss, rather than suppress it, demonstrate better long-term adjustment. Tamping down negative feelings may provide short-term relief, but over time it is associated with greater stress on your body and more difficulty adapting.

In other words, resilience is not about sealing the wound and pretending it no longer aches. It is about learning how to carry the wound without letting it consume your entire story.

Neuroscience supports this integration model. When people engage in meaning-making – reflecting on their experiences and incorporating them into a coherent life narrative – brain networks associated with emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility become more active. The brain, quite literally, reorganizes as you adapt to new realities.

Maria described the change simply.

“I don’t like what happened,” she told me. “But I’m not at war with my body anymore.”

That is resilience.

Practices that help build resilience

If resilience is about integration rather than toughness and bouncing back, how can you cultivate it? Research across psychology, neuroscience and chronic illness points to several evidence-based strategies:

• Allow emotional complexity: Resilient people are not relentlessly positive. They allow space for the full range of emotions, such as gratitude and grief, hope and fear. Paying attention to your feelings through strategies such as reflective writing or psychotherapy have been linked to improved psychological adaptation.

• Build a coherent narrative: Human beings are storytellers. Trauma can shatter one’s sense of self, but constructing a narrative that acknowledges loss while identifying continuity and growth supports adaptation. The goal is not to spin suffering into silver linings, but to situate it within a broader life story. For example, someone might say, “Cancer derailed my plans and changed my body, but it also clarified what matters to me and how I want to move forward.”

• Lean into connection: Isolation magnifies suffering. Social support is one of the strongest predictors of how well people are able to cope and move forward after illness or trauma. For Maria, connection with other women who had had mastectomies normalized her experience and reduced shame.

• Practice deliberate pauses: Intentionally give yourself some time to breathe. Mindfulness and contemplative solitude can strengthen your ability to regulate emotions and recover from stress. Pausing allows experience to be processed rather than avoided.

• Expand identity: Illness, loss and trauma reshape how you think of yourself. Rather than clinging to who you were, resilience often involves expanding who you are becoming. Research on post-traumatic growth shows that people often report deeper relationships, clarified priorities and renewed purpose – not because trauma was good, but because it forced reevaluation. Maria no longer describes herself simply as a breast cancer patient. She is a survivor, yes, but also an advocate, a mentor, a woman whose sense of femininity is self-defined rather than dictated by her anatomy.

Moving forward

We are living in a time of widespread burnout and rising mental health challenges, where cultural pressure to appear strong often leaves people silently struggling. An insistence on grit and relentless optimism can backfire, making people feel inadequate when they inevitably feel pain.

Resilience is not about returning to who you were before illness, loss or trauma. It is about becoming someone new: someone who carries the scar, remembers the loss and still chooses to engage with life.

Maria still pauses when she sees her reflection. But she no longer turns away.

“This is my body,” she told me recently. “This is my story.”

Resilience is not forged in the denial of vulnerability, but in its acceptance. Not in bouncing back, but in integrating what has happened into who you are becoming.

And that, I believe, is where real strength lives.

Keith M. Bellizzi receives funding from the National Cancer Institute and the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative.

– ref. ‘Bouncing back’ is a myth – resilience means integrating hard experiences into your life story, not ignoring them – https://theconversation.com/bouncing-back-is-a-myth-resilience-means-integrating-hard-experiences-into-your-life-story-not-ignoring-them-275069

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Aparna Soni, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Indiana University

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people covered by Medicaid rose month after month – an unusual pattern for the government’s
insurance program for people with low incomes and disabilities.

Why? A policy of continuous coverage during the pandemic essentially halted Medicaid disenrollment to make it easier for people to stay insured during the public health emergency. By early 2023, enrollment had reached an all-time high of more than 94 million people.

Then the trend abruptly reversed.

Between April 2023 – when states began resuming eligibility checks that had been paused during the pandemic – and mid-2025, more than 25 million people were disenrolled from Medicaid. The process became known as the “Great Unwinding.”

As a health economist who studies the effects of public policy on insurance coverage and health outcomes, I’ve been following these enrollment shifts closely. Now that the unwinding has mostly played out, Medicaid enrollment data reveal a fragmented, state-by-state picture. Coverage losses were not evenly distributed, reflecting differences in how states carried out eligibility checks and how much administrative burden they placed on eligible people trying to stay enrolled.

That patchwork of state policies still matters now. Under the 2025 budget law, widely referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as of Jan. 1, 2027, states will have to enforce new Medicaid work rules and more frequently check eligibility for many adults who gained coverage during the expansion. So the same administrative differences exposed by the rollback of Medicaid coverage after the pandemic are likely to play a role again in who keeps their coverage and who loses it.

Pandemic enrollment jump

Before the pandemic, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for children in families with modest incomes, together covered about 71 million Americans.

Normally, people must regularly renew their eligibility for these programs by confirming their income and household information. States remove people who no longer qualify or who fail to complete paperwork.

During the pandemic, however, those routine disenrollments largely stopped as part of the March 2020 Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which included a provision requiring states to keep most people continuously enrolled in Medicaid in exchange for additional federal funding. At the same time, job losses and income declines made more Americans eligible for Medicaid.

Together, those factors caused Medicaid enrollment to surge. Enrollment increased by roughly 23 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching about 94.1 million by 2023.

While the national uninsured rate fell to a record low of 8% during the pandemic, the increase in Medicaid enrollment did not translate one-for-one into fewer uninsured people. Some of those who gained Medicaid coverage had previously been insured through employer-sponsored plans, reflecting shifts in coverage as well as new coverage gains.

The ‘Great Unwinding’

The pandemic era’s continuous coverage policy was always meant to be temporary. Congress ended it in late 2022, allowing states to restart eligibility reviews beginning April 1, 2023.

That process required tens of millions of people to confirm they were still eligible or else lose their Medicaid coverage.

By the time most states finished the process, more than 25 million people had been disenrolled, while about 56 million had their coverage renewed.

One striking feature of the unwinding is that the majority – 69% of people who lost coverage – did so not because they were formally determined to be ineligible but because of administrative reasons, such as failure to return renewal forms or outdated contact information. These are known as “procedural disenrollments.”

Administrative hurdles during the unwinding disrupted continuity of coverage and, in turn, access to care. Racial and ethnic minorities and those with greater health needs were most affected.

State policy shapes coverage losses

As the number of people covered by Medicaid plunged, many states adopted policies to reduce unnecessary coverage loss. These administrative choices ultimately influenced how many eligible people remained covered.

The most common and most effective administrative tool was ex parte – or automatic – renewals. Instead of requiring beneficiaries to submit paperwork, states used existing government data such as tax records or participation in other assistance programs to automatically verify eligibility.

Six months into the unwinding process, more than half of Medicaid renewals were being completed automatically. States that relied more heavily on ex parte renewals had lower disenrollment rates.

States also experimented with other approaches, including extending deadlines for renewal paperwork, adding more staff to answer phones and help people complete renewals, and running outreach campaigns reminding people to update contact information.

Where Medicaid enrollment stands now

The most recent data shows that Medicaid enrollment has largely stabilized after several years of dramatic change. As of December 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, total enrollment stands at roughly 76 million – above prepandemic levels of about 71 million but below the pandemic peak of 94.1 million.

The unwinding offers a clear picture of how Medicaid functions when its rules change. During the pandemic, continuous coverage policies largely eliminated the usual cycle of people moving in and out of the program. When those policies ended, that churn returned – often driven not by changes in eligibility but by how renewal processes were implemented.

Looking ahead, the same state-by-state differences in policies that helped or hindered people’s ability to maintain Medicaid enrollment as pandemic coverage wound down are likely to matter again. Under the 2025 budget law, states must begin checking eligibility for many adults every six months instead of once a year. States must also enforce new work requirements for many adults starting in 2027.

The law also delayed some federal changes that were supposed to make Medicaid enrollment and renewal easier. So even when the rules come from Washington, who keeps their coverage may still depend heavily on how much paperwork, automation and hands-on help each state builds into the process.

Together, these trends suggest that future enrollment levels will be shaped by both expanding and constraining forces. These forces will have real consequences for the millions of people who rely on Medicaid – not just for coverage, but for consistent access to care, medications and financial protection during periods of instability.

Aparna Soni receives funding from the American Lung Association, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Indiana Department of Health, Eli Lilly & Corporation, the Indiana Business Health Collaborative, and the Upjohn Institute.

– ref. 25 million people lost Medicaid after the COVID-19 pandemic — and state policies shaped who stayed covered – https://theconversation.com/25-million-people-lost-medicaid-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-state-policies-shaped-who-stayed-covered-277599

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anna Piela, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies and Gender, Northwestern University

The war with Iran is not just a geopolitical conflict. We see religious rhetoric used to cast strategic interests as a moral or sacred matter.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson described Iran’s majority faith tradition, Shiite Islam, as a “misguided religion” while discussing the ongoing U.S. strikes against Iran on March 4, 2026. A complaint made to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation alleged that same month that an unnamed military commander had said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” In the Book of Revelation, Armageddon represents the final battle between good and evil, associated with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Soon after the U.S. attack on Iran, right-wing pastor Andrew Sedra commented that “Trump is going after the head of the snake, which is Islam.” He added that “God is using President Trump in a prophetic moment of time to execute judgment on evil and wicked civilizations.”

In part, such religious rhetoric draws on older narratives about Islam in Christian thought. In medieval times, Islam was often portrayed as a violent and extremist faith. Over the past few decades, many American politicians and Christian clergy have disparaged Islam and its believers. My research shows that these earlier portrayals remain recognizable in the rhetoric today.

Hostile depictions

Early Christian theologians began to designate Islam as a theological rival soon after its emergence in 610 C.E. In the eighth century, the monk John of Damascus described Islam as a “heresy” in his work “The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites.’” This is widely considered the earliest documented critique of Islamic doctrine.

In his 2002 book, “Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination,” historian John Tolan writes that medieval Christian writers disseminated “crude insults to the Prophet, gross caricatures of Muslim ritual [and] deliberate deformation of passages of the Koran.” They portrayed Muslims as “libidinous, gluttonous semi-human barbarians,” he adds.

Tolan and other historians show how these hostile depictions developed in time in monasteries and royal courts. In popular culture, epic poems called “chansons de geste” glorified Christian heroes vanquishing Muslim foes.

Notably, medieval Muslim theologians also produced cutting critiques of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, which they viewed as polytheistic. However, these writings circulated largely within scholarly circles. In Christian Europe, however, anti-Muslim writings were often used to justify the Crusades. Pope Urban II urged in 1095 that Holy Land be wrested from those who inhabited it and brought under Christian control.

Similarly, the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades were preceded by papal letters that depicted Muslims as enemies of the faith and called on Christians to reclaim Palestine.

The eventual military failure of the Crusades posed a new theological problem to Christian thinkers.

Medieval Christians believed history reflected God’s judgment. As a result, they struggled to explain the military success of Muslim armies in theological terms, since such victories in the Holy Land would imply divine favor for Muslims. In order to reconcile this, some medieval Christians developed the idea that the defeats were a punishment for Christian sin.

Accordingly, medieval epic poems and art often depicted Muslims as near-demonic, bloodthirsty figures wearing turbans and strange robes.

Christian missionary narratives

In later centuries, these anti-Muslim depictions were reworked to justify colonialism. Scholar Edward Said famously critiqued early modern narratives about people and cultures from the Middle East and Arab world in his foundational 1978 work, “Orientalism.”

He argued that Orientalist stereotypes reduced diverse peoples to a set of mostly negative traits: barbaric, violent, incomprehensible, but also lazy, gullible and mysterious. While not held by all Christians, these ideas circulated broadly within Christian and Western intellectual traditions, shaping durable representations of Muslims in literature, art, theology and politics.

Scholar Deepa Kumar, who recognized this tension, wrote that “while ordinary people can and do resist dominant ideas, those who rule the society tend to set the terms of discussion.”

Anti-Muslim tropes were reflected in Christian missionary narratives. In the 19th century, figures such as David Livingstone promoted what later came to be known as the “three C’s” of colonial expansion: Christianity, commerce and civilization, all portrayed as benefiting the colonized peoples.

Over time, these ideas became part of a broader moral justification for European imperial expansion, framing colonial rule as a civilizing mission. As part of this effort, missionaries often contrasted the moral authority of Christianity with Islam, which they portrayed as a morally stagnant and simplistic.

Islamophobia today

While these hostile themes have been adapted over centuries to fit new contexts, they are recognizable in political and media rhetoric today. This rhetoric shapes popular understandings of Islam in troubling ways.

In a survey of American Baptist clergy conducted for my 2026 book, “Confronting Islamophobia in the Church,” with co-author and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf, I found that many pastors describe Islam and Muslims as inherently violent, blasphemous, oppressive toward women, or incompatible with Western society. These pastors have adapted old Christian tropes to contemporary moral language. Theological accusations of Islamic “heresy” have morphed into concerns about apparent Muslim violence and women’s oppression.

A 2019 study found that 9 in 10 pastors believe that they influence what their congregants think about social issues, suggesting that religious prejudice, including Islamophobia, can be reinforced in church contexts. Indeed, historians of American evangelicalism such as Kristin Kobez du Mez note that Islam has been often portrayed in evangelical church contexts as violent and opposed to Christian values. In her 2020 bestselling book, “Jesus and John Wayne,” she cites a 2002 poll that found that 77% of evangelical leaders held an overall unfavorable view of Islam, and 70% agreed that Islam was “a religion of violence.”

At the same time, Muslim groups like Council on American-Islamic Relations and national interfaith coalitions such as Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign have worked with Christians to challenge these portrayals and promote more nuanced understandings of Islam. For example, Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign delivers anti-Islamophobia training to pastors and congregations – Faith over Fear – around the country.

Researchers have linked incendiary rhetoric about Muslims to spikes in discrimination and hate crimes in Europe and North America. A study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found a significant surge in anti-Muslim hate speech in the first week of the war in Iran. When politicians describe Islam as the enemy and the West as a civilizing force, they risk turning distant wars into everyday hostility toward American Muslim communities.

Anna Piela previously received funding from the National Science Center in Poland, the American Academy of Religion, and the Interfaith Alliance. Currently she is not receiving any funding.

– ref. The enduring legacy of medieval Christian depictions of Islam in today’s political discourse – https://theconversation.com/the-enduring-legacy-of-medieval-christian-depictions-of-islam-in-todays-political-discourse-272036

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jennifer Levasseur, Curator of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

At this point in NASA’s human spaceflight story, researchers have a substantial amount of material – documents, artifacts and images – with which to tell the stories of past flights to space. But with NASA’s Artemis II mission around the Moon now in the books, we’re getting a refreshed look at space.

And the digital photographs transmitted back to Earth – even mid-mission – tell a modern story of the crew’s experience. Entire generations born after Apollo 17’s last close-up looks at the Moon in 1972 may hardly believe the reality of Artemis II in the age of AI-generated deep fakes. But this mission was real, and four humans can tell the tale of their adventure using the photographs safely stored on memory cards now in NASA’s hands.

As a space historian and curator well-versed in the visual culture of human spaceflight, I’ve long anticipated seeing the photographs of a return to the Moon.

Post-Apollo, images of space travel were characterized by launching space shuttles, Erector Set-like space stations and Mars rovers crossing a dusty landscape. While the Artemis II photos have timeless, classic elements similar to the Apollo photos, better photographic tools give them a clean, crisp vibe. Space travel now looks more like many people may imagine it’s supposed to look: grand, adventurous, audacious, sublime.

As part of Gen X, I have no personal memory of Apollo. Like many born after NASA’s first slate of lunar missions, my memories of space include visuals like the ill-fated Challenger launch; Mercury program astronaut John Glenn’s return to orbit in a space shuttle in 1998, at age 77; and seeing photos of deep space from the Hubble Space telescope. But these events didn’t include humans on or near the Moon, and many people around my age are thirsty for their own lunar memories to share.

Thanks to the internet and social media, which allow people to access images at a greater speed and volume than ever before, photographs from the Artemis II crew became almost instantly iconic. They were also compared to what came before, as they fit within a mental catalog of exploration photography that’s far older than humans’ earliest attempts at space travel.

Planning and taking photos

Artemis II crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen had weeks’ worth of photography training with a slew of Nikon digital cameras and iPhones. Taking photos with the device so many people have in their pockets is leaps and bounds beyond photography equipment used during Apollo 17 – even the 1960s-era 35mm camera.

NASA’s preference for using the Nikon D5 on the International Space Station has extended to Artemis II. This camera performs well, and NASA likes tried and true reliability when astronauts travel to space.

NASA took a decidedly different path when planning for images of the Moon with Artemis, compared to Apollo. First, the Orion spacecraft used on Artemis is bigger, and it has double the number of windows and cameras inside. Five of Orion’s six windows had live-streaming video cameras capturing the lunar flyby.

Because of their wide swing around the Moon at a distance greater than any Apollo flight, this crew could see more of the Moon in a single glance.

Artemis’ crew trained intensively with geologists and other scientists to be on the lookout for more prospective landing sites for future missions, craters and just interesting events or features. People watching live online could hear their descriptions of what they saw. The conversation between the astronauts on the Orion capsule and the Artemis Science Team was also broadcast.

Exciting new photos

Based on the launch date and the position of the Moon, the crew was prepared for unique angles like Earthset – similar to sunset – and a solar eclipse.

Earthrise – like sunrise – was made familiar by Apollo 8. But it wasn’t visible in the same way for Artemis II due to the Moon’s darkness in its current phase. So, while denied a chance to compare an Earthrise of today with that of 1968, another moment early in the mission provided what might be an even more spectacular visual alignment with memories of Apollo.

In 1972, as the crew of Apollo 17 began their journey to the Moon, geologist Harrison Schmitt captured a series of images of the fully lit disc of Earth at around five hours after the start of the mission. This photo became an icon within a series of iconic photographs of the Space Age, and probably the entire 20th century. It was even featured in Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.”

That was Earth 1972, and now we have Earth 2026 – both serving as documents of singular moments in Earth’s long history. This new photograph shows Earth – lit by the Moon’s glow, not the Sun, as with the Apollo 17 photo – in the black void of space, the thin sliver of our atmosphere shielding life, and generating polar aurorae.

Schmitt’s “Blue Marble” spent over five decades as one of the most-viewed photographs in history. And while people back on Earth saw the new Artemis version within hours of capture, it might get less public recognition in an age of photo manipulation and high-tech wizardry.

These first few images from Artemis II are just the tip of the imagery iceberg, though. Modern memory cards have a capacity that will allow the number of digital images from Artemis II to far surpass the nearly 4,000 photos captured during Apollo 17.

In the weeks and months to come, as mission images fill online databases, Artemis II’s significance as a fresh new vision for human space exploration will continue to grow, building on the lessons of Apollo.

Jennifer Levasseur 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. Artemis II crew used modern photography to tell the visual story of their lunar journey – and update some classic Apollo images – https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-crew-used-modern-photography-to-tell-the-visual-story-of-their-lunar-journey-and-update-some-classic-apollo-images-280341

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jeffrey Taliaferro, Professor of Political Science, Tufts University

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Napoleon Bonaparte’s maxim may well have been in the minds of policymakers in Moscow and Beijing these past weeks, as the U.S. war in Iran dragged on. And now that a 14-day ceasefire between Tehran and Washington is in effect – with both sides claiming “victory” – Russian and Chinese leaders still have an opportunity to profit from what many see as America’s latest folly in the Middle East.

Throughout the weekslong conflict, China and Russia struck a delicate balance. Both declined to give Iran – seen to a varying degree as an ally of both nations – their full-throated support or sink any real costs into the conflict.

Instead, they opted for limited assistance in the form of small-scale intelligence and diplomatic support.

As a scholar of international security and great power politics I believe that is for good reason. Beijing and Moscow were fully aware that Iran could not “win” against the combined military might of the United States and Israel. Rather, Iran just needed to survive to serve the interests of Washington’s main geopolitical rivals.

Below are four ways in which the U.S. war in Iran has damaged Washington’s position in the great power rivalries of the 21st century.

1. Losing the influence war in the Middle East

As I explore in my book “Defending Frenemies,” the U.S. has long struggled to balance competing objectives in the Middle East. During the Cold War, this meant limiting the Soviet Union’s influence in the region, while contending with the development of nuclear weapons by two troublesome allies, Israel and Pakistan.

By the 2020s, the priorities in Washington were aimed at restricting the influence of the U.S.’s great power rivals – China and to a lesser degree Russia – in the Middle East.

Yet under Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, China and Russia have sought to increase their footprint in the region through a variety of formal alliances and informal measures.

For Russia, this took the form of aligning with Iran, while also partnering with Tehran to prop up the now-ousted regime of President Bashar Assad during the Syrian civil war. Meanwhile, China increased its diplomatic profile in the Middle East, notably by acting as a mediator as Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic ties in 2023.

The irony of the latest Iran war is that it follows a period in which circumstances were unfavorable to Russian and Chinese aims of increasing their influence in the Middle East.

The fall of Assad in December 2024 deprived Russia of its one reliable ally in the region. And Trump’s May 2025 tour of the Gulf states, in which he secured major technology and economic deals with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, was aimed at countering China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence in those countries.

With Washington perceived as an increasingly unreliable protector, the Gulf states may seek greater security and economic cooperation elsewhere.

2. Taking US eyes off other strategic goals

In expanding military, diplomatic and economic ties in the Middle East, Russia and China over the past two decades were exploiting a desire by Washington to move its assets and attention away from the region following two costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran directly contradicts the national security strategy his administration released in November 2025. According to the strategy, the administration would prioritize the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, while the Middle East’s importance “will recede.”

In co-launching a war in Tehran with Israel, without any prior consultation with Washington’s other allies, Trump has shown a complete disregard for their strategic and economic concerns. NATO, already riven by Trump’s repeated threats to the alliance and designs on Greenland, has now shown further signs of internal divisions.

That offers benefits for China and Russia, which have long sought to capitalize on cracks between America and its allies.

The irony, again, is that the war in Iran came as Trump’s vision of the U.S. as the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere was making advances. International law and legitimacy concerns aside, Washington had ousted a thorn in its side with Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and replaced him with a more compliant leader.

3. Disproportionate economic fallout

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where some 20% of the world’s oil passes, was as predictable as it was destructive for U.S. interests.

But for Russia, this meant higher oil prices that boosted its war economy. It also led to the temporary but ongoing easing of U.S. sanctions, which has provided Moscow an indispensable lifeline after years of economic pressure over the war in Ukraine.

While a prolonged closure and extensive damage to oil and natural gas infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf states no doubt hurts China’s energy security and economy, these were risks Xi appears willing to accept, at least for a time.

And by building up a domestic oil reserve and diversifying energy sources to include solar, electric batteries and coal, China is far better positioned to weather a prolonged global energy crisis than the U.S. Indeed, Beijing has made strides in recent year to encourage domestic consumption as a source of economic growth, rather than be so reliant on global trade. That may have given China some protection during the global economic shock caused by the Iran war, as well as push the economy further down its own track.

The more the U.S. loses control over events in the strait, the more it loses influence in the region – especially as Iran appears to be placing restrictions on ships from unfriendly nations.

4. Loss of global leadership

Trump’s willingness to abandon talks to go to war, and the contradictory rhetoric he has employed throughout the Iran conflict, has weakened the perception of the U.S. as an honest broker.

That provides a massive soft power boost for Beijing. It was China that pressed Iran to accept the 14-day ceasefire proposal brokered by Pakistan. Indeed, China has slowly chipped away at America’s longtime status as global mediator of first resort.

Beijing has successfully mediated in the past between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and it attempted to do the same with Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Palestinians.

In general, the Iran war adds weight to Beijing’s worldview that the U.S.-led liberal international order is over. Even if China benefited at some level from the war continuing, its decision to help broker the ceasefire shows that China is increasingly taking on the mantle of global leadership that the U.S. used to own.

And for Russia, the Iran war and the rupture between Trump and America’s NATO allies over their lack of support for it, shift world attention and U.S. involvement from the war in Ukraine.

Jeffrey Taliaferro 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. 4 ways the war in Iran has weakened the United States in the great power game – https://theconversation.com/4-ways-the-war-in-iran-has-weakened-the-united-states-in-the-great-power-game-279069

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Anastasia Klimchynskaya, Assistant Professor of English, Illinois Wesleyan University

With the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission on April 1, 2026, human beings have finally returned to the Moon for the first time in 50 years – since the age of Apollo.

When Apollo 11 first landed on the lunar surface, the astronauts portrayed their accomplishment as the realization of a science fictional dream. In a televised broadcast during their return, Neil Armstrong explicitly evoked Jules Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon,” calling his spaceship and crew a “modern-day Columbia” – a direct reference to the spaceship Verne imagined taking off in from Florida and landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Discourse around science fiction coming true often focuses on the gadgets and technologies it predicted. But as sci-fi author Frederik Pohl reputedly said, it’s not about imagining the car, but the traffic jam.

As a literature professor who has studied science fiction for a decade and editor of a forthcoming edition of Verne’s novel annotated for the spacefaring age, I find that what makes Verne’s 1865 novel prescient is that a century before the Moon landing, he understood that a moonshot would not be an act of pure and abstract science. It would exist within a political, social and economic context.

In his novel, the moonshot is proposed by the Baltimore Gun Club in the months after the U.S. Civil War, and Verne tells the story of how they make this colossal undertaking happen. Writing before even the age of powered flight, he foresaw that a project to send a small handful of carefully selected, exceptional individuals beyond Earth would have ripple effects throughout the entire world.

And with four astronauts having just circled the Moon as part of the Artemis II mission, the similarities between Verne’s vision and America’s current Moon-oriented dreams are striking – and revealing of the realities of the spacefaring age.

A nationalist and international project

In Verne’s novel, the moonshot is explicitly proposed as a nationalist project, even as it also becomes a pinnacle of human achievement that unifies the world. The speech in which it is proposed is one full of celebrations of American engineers, scientists and generals who have come before, and Americanness is key to its realization.

At one moment, it becomes clear that the launch must occur near the equator to minimize the distance to the Moon. Since this is an American endeavor, however, the protagonists are adamant that it must launch from the United States, and the Gun Club briefly considers invading Mexico to make this happen before remembering that Florida and Texas are both suitable.

Later, a Frenchman, Michel Ardan, telegraphs that he’d like to make the trip to the Moon. He’s welcomed and celebrated but allowed on the voyage only after he’s made an honorary citizen of the United States.

At the same time, the moonshot reaches the entire world. Every soul on the planet follows the news of it via telegraph, and it receives widespread support on the principle that “it was both the right and the duty of the entire Earth to intervene in the affairs of its satellite.” The world’s nations come together to raise funds for it and breathlessly await the launch.

Comparisons to the space race are obvious: During the 1960s, the Moon was another battleground in the Cold War, an ideological battle to answer the question of which system – communism or capitalism and democracy – can meet the challenge of putting a human being on the Moon first. Yet it was, and still is, also celebrated as a triumph of humananity’s willpower, ingenuity and bravery.

Artemis II is animated by this same tension between nationalism and a unifying vision of humanity. In the moments before launch, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told NASA and the world, “We are going for all humanity.” The fact that a Canadian astronaut has joined an American crew, too, is a departure from Cold War days.

Throughout the Artemis II mission, the astronauts and NASA’s ground control team repeatedly evoked the idea of a humanity united across international boundaries. After performing the translunar injection burn that committed Orion to its lunar trajectory, astronaut Christina Koch stated, “We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other,” to which NASA’s Mission Control responded: “Integrity from Earth, our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy. Those that can are looking back.”

And yet, Artemis II is an important step in a modern-day space race, this time with the United States and China as opponents. The Artemis program is actively trying to return Americans to the Moon before China gets there. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has been unequivocal that the United States doing so first is crucial to continuing to prove American excellence on the world stage and therefore maintaining its economic and soft power.

Planetary colonization

In Verne’s novel, the original motivation for going to the Moon is, in the words of the character Barbicane, to become “the Columbuses of this new world.” Though they call their project a scientific experiment, the characters see the Moon as a territory to be claimed, which will become the newest American state.

This perspective sees the natural world and the cosmos as another frontier to be conquered, and it echoes the imperial and colonial practices of Verne’s time, which saw populated places such as Africa and the American West as blank slates to claim.

Visions such as Verne’s influenced most of the engineers and scientists that made human spaceflight possible, such as Robert Goddard and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who believed that humanity’s destiny is in the stars.

This perspective, too, has been part of the rhetoric around Artemis II. While this mission has extensive scientific objectives – for the first time, there’s a science desk at Mission Control – NASA has also repeatedly billed this mission as a momentous achievement because it took human beings farther from Earth than any human being has ever traveled.

If space is “the final frontier,” to borrow a phrase from “Star Trek,” then Artemis II is historic because it has taken American astronauts farther into that frontier.

Environmental effects

In Verne’s novel, Tampa, Florida, is chosen as “Moon City,” from which the moonbound projectile will be launched. It is a profound economic boon for the city, just as real cities in Florida, Texas and elsewhere experienced economic and population growth in the 20th century due to the Apollo program.

Yet the moonshot also has a devastating and negative effect in the book: The force of the detonation that launches the three explorers to the Moon razes the city and even causes a powerful storm that spreads to the Atlantic Ocean and sinks ships.

Today’s space industry, too, offers many economic boons, with companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin employing thousands. But it also often has similarly harmful effects.

For example, SpaceX’s Texas Starbase – the primary facility for developing its Starship, which is intended to help NASA land humans on the Moon – has had detrimental effects on the surrounding landscape and population. Test launches that don’t go as planned rain down shrapnel and debris, endangering people and damaging fragile ecosystems. Noise, water and air pollution are equally inconveniences to the local residents and a threat to many endangered species in the area.

The prescience of a work of science fiction such as Verne’s lies not in the technologies he dreamed up but in the way he thought through their consequences and repercussions.

Anastasia Klimchynskaya 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. Artemis II moonshot reflects a spacefaring vision present in Jules Verne’s 19th-century novel – https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-moonshot-reflects-a-spacefaring-vision-present-in-jules-vernes-19th-century-novel-280252

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kar-Hai Chu, Associate Professor of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh

As the risk of measles remains an ongoing concern, herd immunity in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is already slipping. According to data obtained via The Washington Post in January 2026, 1 in 3 Allegheny County kindergartners were in a classroom too far below adequate vaccination coverage to stop a measles outbreak during the 2023-24 school year.

A professor from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health, Kar-Hai Chu, and a research program supervisor, Maggie Slavin, answered our questions about declining measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates and what it means for the future of public health.

Private and parochial/religious schools in Allegheny County fall below the herd immunity threshold, while public schools tend not to. What explains that gap, and should it concern us?

Research shows the disparity between vaccination coverage in private and parochial/religious versus public schools is that private and parochial/religious schools tend to have higher rates of exemptions to vaccinations for moral and religious beliefs.

Local vaccination rates in Allegheny County schools are declining and are below the necessary level of vaccination coverage to stop the spread of measles: 95%. Between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, public schools displayed an overall decline in coverage, whereas private and parochial/religious increased coverage between the two years, yet have greater variation in coverage across schools. Regardless of school type, children should have complete and updated vaccinations to protect themselves and the community. Even small dips in vaccination rates can lead to the spread of disease.

What are combination vaccines and how long have they been used?

Combination vaccines are single injections that protect against multiple, preventable diseases and have been used since the 1940s. They represent one of public health’s most successful interventions. Common examples include DTaP – for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis – and MMR, for measles, mumps and rubella. The MMR vaccine has been licensed since 1971 and helped eliminate measles from the U.S. by 2000. It reduced cases by 80% within a decade of its introduction to society.

Why are some government officials calling to split these vaccines?

The U.S. officials calling to split combination vaccines cite unsubstantiated claims linking them to autism and concerns about too many vaccinations administered at once.

These claims contradict decades of scientific evidence that demonstrates the safety and efficacy of combination vaccines.

Who determines vaccination recommendations in the US?

Since 1964, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has provided evidence-based vaccination recommendations. The committee consists of volunteer medical and public health experts appointed by the secretary of Health and Human Services for staggered, four-year terms. These experts review scientific evidence throughout the year and update recommendations accordingly. States maintain authority to implement these recommendations as they see fit. Vaccination recommendations have been politicized under the current administration and are currently in a sort of limbo.

In June 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of promoting anti-vaccination dissinformation, took the unprecedented step of firing all 17 committee members and appointing 12 new members with questionable qualifications and conflicts of interest. This could be considered a fundamental disruption to the evidence-based process that has protected public health for over 60 years.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and Gov. Josh Shapiro have stated that they continue to endorse evidence-based vaccination guidelines from leading national medical associations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

What are the real-world consequences of vaccine misinformation and disinformation?

An example consequence is now visible: Measles is spreading again in the U.S. In 2025, there were 2,255 confirmed cases, which is nearly double the 2019 peak of 1,274 cases.

While there haven’t been any confirmed cases of measles in Allegheny County in 2026, there were confirmed measles cases in Lancaster County on Feb. 3, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which determined the individuals were not vaccinated.

Another visible consequence of vaccination misinformation and disinformation is that unvaccinated people face 140 times higher risk of contracting measles. Over 90% of 2025 cases in the U.S. occurred in people who were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccine status.

When government officials become sources of misinformation, the threat multiplies exponentially. The World Health Organization identifies vaccine hesitancy as one of the biggest threats to global health.

What can be done to protect evidence-based vaccination policy?

The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes that state-level policies may offer greater responsiveness to local needs while maintaining evidence-based standards.

Stronger state policies play a key role in ensuring vaccine access. In Louisiana, for example, framing vaccination as a way to keep your neighbors safe has been used as an effective way to appeal to local communities. In South Dakota, advocates are reaching business owners by emphasizing the economic benefits of immunization. The state of Oregon created a financing model that allows providers and clinics to access vaccines with no upfront costs, then they reimburse the state once they have been paid by insurers.

People can support organizations that prioritize scientific evidence over anecdotes, demand transparency in policymaking and understand the difference between legitimate scientific debate and coordinated misinformation. These are crucial steps in protecting vaccine policies. The 2026 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines have been deemed trustworthy by 12 health care organizations that represent over a million pediatric medical professionals.

Kar-Hai Chu receives funding from the NIH.

Maggie Slavin 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. What declining vaccination rates mean for families in Allegheny County – where 1 in 3 kindergarten classrooms lack herd immunity for measles – https://theconversation.com/what-declining-vaccination-rates-mean-for-families-in-allegheny-county-where-1-in-3-kindergarten-classrooms-lack-herd-immunity-for-measles-277469