Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Henry F. Fradella, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

Texas Tech University, a public university in Lubbock, announced in April 2026 that its five schools would phase out all academic credentials centered on sexual orientation or gender identity. The new policy, detailed in a six-page memo on April 9, also requires instructors to use “alternate materials” when courses address these topics.

Texas Tech, led by former Texas Republican state legislator Brandon Creighton, is not the first university to try to restrict instruction on gender, sexual orientation and other topics in recent years.

In 2023, for example, Florida passed legislation that banned students at public universities from majoring in critical race theory, gender studies, queer theory and intersectionality.

Texas Tech, however, goes further with this new memo. It also bars graduate students from writing “degree-culminating” theses or dissertations on sexual orientation or gender identity, something no other major public university system appears to have done.

As a scholar who studies the intersection of law, science and public policy, I doubt the policy would survive a possible constitutional challenge in court, given First Amendment freedom of speech protections. Even if courts ultimately strike the policy down, though, it may still leave a lasting mark, by signaling that some universities are willing to prioritize politics over independent academic inquiry.

Texas Tech’s policy shift

Texas Tech’s policy, which will begin taking effect in June 2026, requires faculty to teach in compliance with a 2025 Texas law that declares there are “only two human sexes.”

The law echoes the language of an executive order the Trump administration issued in January 2025 that said “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”

Despite that air of certainty, there is substantial scientific literature that shows people’s biological variation does not fit a strict binary model.

Texas Tech faculty will soon be largely prohibited from teaching about gender fluidity or gender as a spectrum. There are narrow exceptions to this rule, such as discussions about intersex traits, so long as instructors do not “advocate for or validate sociological frameworks.”

Although current faculty may continue researching “topics of their choosing,” new faculty will be hired “in alignment” with the memo.

Students, meanwhile, can continue to conduct “general independent student research,” and write standard term papers, for example, on one of these subjects. But students cannot write graduate theses or dissertations on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By legal standards, these new policies are not neutral, curricular decisions. This is because the state of Texas favors one viewpoint – that there are only two biological sexes – that this public university system now reflects.

For nearly 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the idea of viewpoint discrimination at universities. This discrimination occurs when the government or another authority allows speech favoring one opinion, while restricting speech expressing an opposing opinion.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees the region where Texas Tech is located, has also long recognized that “classroom discussion is protected activity.”

In a statement to the Associated Press in April, Creighton said that the school is “focused on ensuring our academic programs are rigorous, relevant, and produce degrees of value.”

He added that this focus “is matched by our unwavering support for the First Amendment and the open exchange of ideas that define a public university. Texas Tech will continue to be a national leader on both fronts.”

Part of a broader story

The Texas Tech policy is the latest example of a broader political effort to reshape what public universities may teach and research.

Several other public universities have also recently limited programs or coursework involving gender and identity studies.

In 2022, Florida’s “Stop WOKE” Act, restricted instruction perceived as endorsing certain race-related concepts in classrooms and workplace training sessions. Some faculty members left Florida public universities, citing concerns about censorship and political interference in higher education.

In 2022, federal judge Mark Walker called that Florida law “positively dystopian” and barred its enforcement, holding that the state cannot grant academic freedom only to viewpoints it favors. The restrictions remain blocked, pending appeal.

Texas A&M English professor Melissa McCoul sued that university after she was fired in September 2025, following a classroom discussion she led about gender identity.

Texas A&M later eliminated its women’s and gender studies degree program in January 2026.

The University of Texas at Austin consolidated four ethnic studies departments and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department into a single Department of Social and Cultural Analysis in February 2026. The university is also reviewing which majors, minors and courses within that new department students may pursue and enroll in.

These changes reflect a broader political climate in which some politicians and university leaders increasingly frame gender identity and other academic subjects as ideological positions, rather than scholarly areas of research. That trend has intensified alongside the Trump administration’s executive orders, actions and rhetoric surrounding gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Limiting academic research

Texas Tech was established in 1923 to prepare students for technical and agricultural professions, and “elevate the ideals, enrich the lives, and increase the capacity of the people for democratic self-government.”

That mission reflects the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement describes universities as dedicated to “the common good” through the “free search for truth.”

Universities are therefore expected to pursue scholarly inquiry according to disciplinary standards and academic expertise, not partisan priorities. That commitment is reflected in the thesis and dissertation process, through which faculty evaluate students’ ability to conduct independent research and contribute to disciplinary knowledge.

Although disfavored on some Texas and Florida campuses, topics such as HIV disparities in LGBTQ+ populations continue to be studied elsewhere as public-health subjects. The same is true for suicide risk and family rejection among LGBTQ+ adolescents and services for transgender youth.

With such lines of inquiry curtailed, some Texas Tech students now question whether the university can still provide an “honest education.” Some Texas Tech faculty members are openly discussing looking for other jobs.

Restricting academic independence

A September 2025 survey by the American Association of University Professors documented the toll of political interference on university faculty across the country, including in Texas.

One-quarter of the 1,100 Texas professors and researchers surveyed said they are seeking jobs outside the state. More than 60% said they would not encourage graduate students or colleagues to work at a university in Texas.

When the state decides which questions may and may not be researched, it is doing more than shaping curriculum. It is regulating the boundaries of knowledge itself by determining what future scholars may study and what universities are permitted to discover.

That – more than any single line in a memo – is what I believe should concern anyone who cares about the integrity of higher education. And it is precisely the danger longstanding First Amendment protections for academic freedom were designed to prevent.

Henry F. Fradella 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. Texas Tech’s new limits on how faculty teach gender identity and sexual orientation challenge more than free speech – https://theconversation.com/texas-techs-new-limits-on-how-faculty-teach-gender-identity-and-sexual-orientation-challenge-more-than-free-speech-282840

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Benjamin Chrisinger, Assistant Professor of Community Health, Tufts University

The more than 250,000 shops and stores that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits as payment for groceries will have to meet tougher requirements starting on Nov. 4, 2026, according to new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules. Any retailers that accept SNAP benefits from their customers will have to stock a wider variety of food, some of it perishable.

Government officials said they introduced the new standards to make it easier for Americans who receive SNAP benefits, which help people pay for groceries, to select more nutritious options.

As a community health scholar, I’ve been following these and other changes to SNAP, the largest and most important government program for helping Americans get enough to eat. While expanding access to healthy food is a worthy goal, I fear that these new rules could have the opposite effect for people who are enrolled in SNAP.

More kinds of dairy, produce, grains and protein

Until now, small shops and big stores alike have had to stock at least three items in each of four staple food categories if they want to be able to accept SNAP benefits: dairy, produce, grains and protein.

Under the stricter new rules, all retailers accepting SNAP as payment must sell at least seven kinds of food in each of those four categories. And they need to offer at least one perishable variety in three of the four.

The rules will expand some ways that retailers can meet USDA requirements. For example, the government will accept plain, seasoned and shelf-stable meats as separate items that count as protein. And specialty retailers, such as bakeries and produce markets, will remain exempt from having to fulfill all the requirements.

But certain items that currently meet the requirements, such as beef jerky for protein or butter for dairy, no longer will.

Supermarkets and other big stores that sell groceries won’t need to do anything different to comply with the rule changes. But many convenience stores, corner markets, bodegas and other small stores will have to make changes if they want to continue to accept SNAP benefits.

What’s at stake

A big industry group that represents convenience stores and an anti-hunger organization are both warning that instead of making it easier for low-income people to follow a balanced diet, the new USDA rules might lead many small shops to stop accepting SNAP benefits.

That’s in part due to other changes those small retailers face.

More than 20 states have begun to restrict what people can buy with their SNAP benefits. Selling banned items to shoppers paying with SNAP benefits can jeopardize a store’s ability to accept those benefits.

These rules prohibit sales of soda, with some states also banning the sale of energy drinks, candy, desserts or processed foods to anyone paying with SNAP benefits. Some states, including Tennessee, are proposing additional, more complex restrictions based on ingredient lists.

Retailers will have to update their checkout systems to prevent SNAP payments on banned items, and educate staff and customers about the changes. Rather than police purchases, some stores might instead decide to stop accepting SNAP. This could leave communities with fewer options to spend SNAP benefits.

Fewer people are getting SNAP benefits

These aren’t the only challenges retailers that accept SNAP benefits face. Nationwide, the number of people who get those benefits fell by about 10% between June 2025 and February 2026, from about 42 million to 38 million. This decline isn’t happening because fewer Americans need help paying for groceries.

The big tax and spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2025 is responsible. It restricted SNAP eligibility for some age groups and expanded the reach of SNAP’s work requirements.

With fewer Americans using SNAP, retailers can expect lower sales. This could be a big problem for stores whose customers rely heavily on SNAP. It’s possible that some of these stores could close.

While losing food retailers will make shopping with SNAP less convenient, it also could be bad for their former customers’ health. Research shows that people enrolled in SNAP have healthier diets when they have better access to retailers that accept SNAP as payment. And cutting their benefits has the opposite effect.

Helping small shops offer healthier options

This isn’t the first time the government has sought to make it easier to buy healthier food at small stores in low-income communities. State and local governments and researchers have worked for over a decade with the owners of those shops to procure, stock and sell healthier products.

Examples include the Healthy Corner Store Initiative in Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey; collaborations between city officials and researchers in Baltimore; and a state-funded program to purchase equipment and health-promotion materials for small stores in rural North Carolina.

Often, these programs have assisted store owners with a mix of expertise, funding and logistics, such as new shelving and refrigeration.

While there have been successes, researchers that have evaluated these programs have found that there are many obstacles.

Role of small stores

Many smaller retailers are not familiar with how to source and stock healthier food, especially produce, and may question whether these products will sell. These initiatives are often funded on a temporary basis, meaning that store owners must maintain any changes on their own after a program ends.

For example, a refrigerator purchased for fresh fruits and vegetables can easily be repurposed to hold bottles of soda.

Efforts to get small shops to sell more nutritious food work best when they are created in partnership with store owners and tailored to fit the needs of local communities. But the USDA is not offering that kind of help.

What’s more, while most Americans buy salty or sweet treats from convenience stores, I think that these rules suggest that SNAP shoppers should not.

For more than 60 years, a cornerstone of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the food stamp program that preceded it has always been that the people who are enrolled in it should be treated like everyone else when they buy food. I believe that the USDA’s new rules suggest that the government is moving away from that commitment.

Benjamin Chrisinger has received funding from USDA’s Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Partnership. This should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. government determination or policy.

– ref. New SNAP rules requiring that benefits be used at stores selling healthier food could backfire – https://theconversation.com/new-snap-rules-requiring-that-benefits-be-used-at-stores-selling-healthier-food-could-backfire-282788

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Klinger Soares Faico Filho, Professor da Disciplina de Clínica Médica e Medicina Laboratorial, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)

As a deadly outbreak of Ebola virus spreads in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on May 17, 2026, that it is transferring “a small number of Americans” who were in Congo and who were exposed to the virus.

Some of these exposures are classified as high-risk, and among them is an American doctor who has been evacuated to Germany, health officials said.

On May 18, the U.S. also announced a ban on people who have recently traveled to Ebola-affected countries from entering the country.

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak to be an international health emergency on May 17. However, the CDC says the risk to the United States remains low.

As an infectious disease scientist who has studied multiple epidemics around the world, I agree that this reassurance is justified. But one key aspect of this outbreak is highly concerning: There is more than one Ebola virus, and this outbreak is caused by one for which the world has no vaccine.

A familiar name, an unfamiliar virus

First identified in 1976, Ebola viruses have caused dozens of outbreaks across Africa.

The group of viruses that cause the disease, called orthoebolaviruses, consists of six known species, but three cause most large outbreaks: Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo. The tools the world developed over the past decade – the licensed vaccine Ervebo and monoclonal antibody treatments – were designed against the Zaire species, which is by far the most common.

The current outbreak, by contrast, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, first identified in 2007 in Uganda. It is only the third documented Bundibugyo outbreak on record – and the largest.

There are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo virus. That’s because its genetic makeup differs significantly from other orthoebolaviruses. When the Bundibugyo virus was first described, scientists warned that this divergence would complicate efforts to design diagnostics and vaccines against it. An immune response to the Zaire species, elicited by a vaccine, is unlikely to protect against Bundibugyo.

An outbreak that grew in the dark

The most worrying feature about the current outbreak is not the virus itself but how large it already was when it was recognized.

It took the WHO until May 15 to identify the Bundibugyo strain as the cause of the outbreak. By May 16, the health organization had identified 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths in the DRC’s Ituri province. Recent Zaire outbreaks were often declared with only a handful of community deaths.

One reason for the delay is technical: The rapid field tests used for screening are calibrated for the Zaire species and often miss Bundibugyo. Early samples in this outbreak tested negative for Ebola; only genomic sequencing at a reference laboratory in Kinshasa identified the species. An outbreak that spreads invisibly is far harder to contain because contact tracing is always one step behind.

Geography compounds the danger – and explains why the WHO moved so fast after identifying the cause of the outbreak to declare it an emergency. Ituri has porous borders with Uganda and South Sudan as well as a highly mobile population. It is also in the grip of a humanitarian and security crisis due to prolonged armed conflict in eastern Congo.

The outbreak’s hot spots include mining towns with constant worker turnover, and cases have already reached Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, where more than 1.5 million people are connected to the world by an international airport. That is the international community’s central fear: not the remote village, but the virus reaching dense, highly connected urban hubs from which it can travel along trade and air routes across borders.

An outbreak that stays rural can be contained; one that reaches the transit network – as seems to be the case now – becomes everyone’s problem.

How Ebola spreads – and why health workers’ risk is high

There is also a less intuitive route. After recovery, the virus can persist for months in sites such as the testes, eyes and central nervous system, which infectious disease experts call “immune-privileged” sites. This means they don’t tend to experience strong responses from the immune system when they are invaded by foreign substances.

For the Zaire species, this has produced documented cases of sexual transmission from male survivors whose blood had long since cleared the virus. This is why the WHO now advises male survivors to abstain from sex or use condoms until semen tests negative twice.

How far this applies to Bundibugyo is not yet established, but it is one more reason that a “contained” outbreak is rarely the end of the story.

A revealing detail of the current outbreak: Among the first identified cases were four health workers, who died within days. This points to transmission inside health facilities, a classic pattern when protective equipment and infection control fall short.

What this outbreak is really testing

With no specific vaccine or antiviral, the response depends entirely on classic public health measures: early detection, case isolation, contact tracing, safe burials, infection control and community engagement. These work, but they are labor-intensive and fragile in a conflict zone.

The encouraging news is that early supportive care – fluids and blood-pressure and oxygen management – saves lives even without a targeted drug. Experimental Bundibugyo vaccines have also shown promise in primates, though they are not yet proved in humans.

There is a final point that should resonate in the United States: Some epidemiologists have raised the question of whether cuts to global health programs contributed to the delay in this outbreak’s detection. Whatever the answer, the lesson is the same: With the existing Ebola vaccine, the world built a narrow defense against one species of a virus that comes in several.

The Americans now being flown out of Congo are a reminder that in an interconnected world, no outbreak is ever entirely someone else’s problem.

Klinger Soares Faico Filho is the founder and editor in chief of InfectoCast, a medical education platform on infectious diseases based in Brazil offering a podcast, courses, a subscription-based app, events, and content aimed at healthcare professionalsInfectoCast had no role in the preparation, review, or publication of this article

– ref. Ebola strain spreading in Congo and Uganda has no approved vaccine – https://theconversation.com/ebola-strain-spreading-in-congo-and-uganda-has-no-approved-vaccine-283221

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristin Kanthak, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

At a time when hard-fought primary elections in Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana and Ohio are making national news, perennial battleground Pennsylvania seems to be nodding through one of the sleepiest primary seasons in a long time.

I’m an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. My research focuses on how political institutions like political parties and state and local governments affect political representation.

In statewide races, only the Republican lieutenant governor slot is contested, a race between GOP-endorsed attorney Jason Richey and newcomer John Ventre. In the state Senate, less than a third of incumbents drew a challenger. Only 21 of the 203 state Assembly seats see an incumbent facing an in-party challenge. So why does Pennsylvania, usually a hotbed of political strife, appear to be sitting this midterm primary season out?

Uncontested primaries are normal

According to political scientists Shigeo Hirano and James M. Snyder Jr., uncontested primaries, and uncontested elections in general, are normal – and can even be a good thing. They argue it’s because high quality candidates do not tend to draw a challenge. This means that an uncontested primary signifies the district has no potential candidates who both want the job and think they can win against the incumbent.

The biggest reason challengers stay home is because of a well-dug-in incumbent, and Pennsylvania had plenty of those this cycle. Unlike in Indiana, no wave of anti-establishment energy is giving long-shot challengers a fighting chance.

Interestingly, the moderate Trump foe and incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican state representative from Bucks County, managed to avoid a primary challenge this year. Fitzpatrick was one of only two Republicans to vote against the H.R. 1 Act – also known as President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

The only other dissenting vote came from Kentucky’s Thomas Massie — and the President responded by personally recruiting a primary challenger to run against him.

Why Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick got a pass

So how did Fitzpatrick manage to avoid Trump’s notice? It helps to compare his political fortunes with Massie’s.

Massie’s district is solidly red. He typically wins at least 60% of his general election vote. In 2024, no Democrat even ran against him.

Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, hails from a decidedly “purple” district where the vote could go in either party’s direction. He rarely wins more than 55% of the vote, and is perennially on the list of the most at-risk Republican incumbents.

In other words, in a midterm election in which Republicans face strong competition and fear losing the House of Representatives, Republicans need Fitzpatrick more than they need Massie. Without Fitzpatrick, his district is much more likely to fall in the Democratic column. Without Massie, Republicans can still expect to keep the seat red.

Pennsylvania parties hold the key

Pennsylvania incumbents have mostly been able to avoid finding themselves part of a larger conflict.

Some of the most contested primaries this election cycle stem from disputes centered on President Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional district lines. But the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with its closely divided state legislature, is not going to change its electoral map anytime soon. So the Commonwealth was left out of partisan gerrymandering disputes.

Pennsylvania remains one of only 13 American states that holds closed primary elections. That means voters must already be registered as party members to vote in that party’s primary. In an open, or even semi-open, primary state like Michigan and Iowa, potential challengers can try to win a primary election by relying on new voters choosing to align with the party only for that election day, or even for that specific election.

A closed party system gives party regulars, and the party organization itself, enormous sway over who gets nominated. Potential candidates in closed-party states are much better off working within the party organization and waiting for an incumbent to step down before throwing their hats in the ring.

Pennsylvania is a closed-party state and a swing state. In an election cycle in which political parties from West Virginia’s Republicans to California’s Democrats seem to be turning on their own members, Democrats and Republicans in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have managed to keep their parties more unified.

The desire for party fealty is strong, but not as strong as the need to win in the general election. Pennsylvania parties are powerful, and they are staying cautious until November. An uncontested primary, in other words, isn’t a sign of apathy. In Pennsylvania, it’s strategy.

Kristin Kanthak 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. Battleground state with few combatants – why Pennsylvania’s primaries lack competition – https://theconversation.com/battleground-state-with-few-combatants-why-pennsylvanias-primaries-lack-competition-283219

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian Tang, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University at Albany, State University of New York

The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1, and while a developing El Niño might result in a tamer season than in the past few years, all it takes is one big storm hitting a populated area to make it a bad hurricane season.

Every year, Americans rely on accurate forecasts when hurricanes might be developing to know when to stock up on supplies, prepare for power outages or evacuate.

Those forecasts have improved dramatically in recent decades, but the improvements can’t be taken for granted. Over the past year, federal funding cuts and job losses in the very programs that are helping make Americans safer from extreme weather threaten to stall progress and stretch forecasting resources to the breaking point.

I am an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on hurricanes, including how and why they intensify or weaken. I also work with scientists at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, NOAA, to analyze observations collected by reconnaissance aircraft and evaluate computer model forecasts of hurricanes.

Here’s what forecasters rely on during hurricane season and why investing in science, forecasting technologies and the people who run them matters.

Flying through hurricanes

To have the best chance of an accurate hurricane forecast, computer models and meteorologists need to know about the location, intensity and structure of a hurricane, along with the environment that surrounds it. Satellites are crucial for tracking storms from above, but many details can be collected only inside the storm, where satellites can’t see.

That’s why NOAA relies on “hurricane hunters” – a group of skilled pilots and scientists who fly through storms all season long to collect storm data, which is quickly transmitted to forecasters and computer models.

When storms are developing, the U.S. Air Force Reserve and NOAA conduct several hurricane hunter flights per day to provide the most up-to-date storm information. During these missions, the crews often fly directly into the storm, through screaming winds and heavy rain, to release instrument packages called dropsondes.

The dropsonde is a feat of science and engineering, able to accurately measure the temperature, humidity, wind and pressure in hostile conditions. This data is radioed back to the aircraft. From there, it is processed and transmitted to NOAA, where forecasters analyze it and computer models use it to initialize forecasts.

I and many hurricane scientists have used dropsonde data collected over the years to build a better understanding of how hurricanes behave. A recent study showed that computer model forecasts of hurricane tracks were up to 24% more accurate when they included dropsonde data than those that didn’t.

Simulating hurricanes

A big reason hurricane forecasts have gotten better has been federal investments in computer models that can simulate these storms.

In 2008 the U.S. government funded the NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, leading to substantial advancements in computer modeling and forecast accuracy. Computer models got better at incorporating the observations gathered by aircraft, showing air movements and rain bands in greater detail.

The flagship NOAA hurricane model is now the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, which does a better job of predicting rapid intensification, among other things, than its predecessors.

When storms rapidly intensify, as several have done in recent years, they can pose an acute risk to coastal communities. More accurate forecasts give people and communities better information to decide how to prepare and when they need to evacuate. Improvements since 2007 have resulted in an estimated US$2 billion in savings per hurricane landfall and many lives saved.

That’s a huge return on investment. In 2024, NOAA’s entire budget was $6.7 billion.

Keeping an eye on the storms ahead

There are some exciting developments ahead in hurricane observations and modeling.

NOAA in 2024 ordered two new aircraft, expected to be delivered by 2030, to begin replacing its aging hurricane hunter fleet so fights and their data collection can continue.

Private companies working with NOAA have deployed and tested autonomous drones – both in the air and sail drones on the ocean surface – that can collect data in areas where quality observations are hard to get.

Additionally, artificial intelligence weather models have emerged, such as Google DeepMind, which made a big splash as the most accurate forecast model of the 2025 hurricane season.

Some lingering dark clouds

Despite these promising developments, a different storm is eroding the bedrock upon which the national weather forecast enterprise sits.

Cuts in funding and staffing have stressed NOAA’s ability to collect critical observations. Last year, retired NOAA scientists volunteered to staff hurricane hunter reconnaissance flights so the missions could still be flown.

The Trump administration proposed cutting NOAA’s budget by more than a quarter, including dismantling its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Congress rejected many of the administration’s proposed budget cuts, ultimately approving a $6.1 billion budget in March 2026, still down from the previous budget.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, which led the development of computer models and dropsonde technology, has also been targeted by the Trump administration to be dismantled. The American Meteorological Society warns this decision “will harm meteorological research and innovation in the United States with severe consequences to current and future efforts of the weather enterprise to protect life, property, and the nation’s economy.”

I worry about the funding and staff cuts stressing systems that keep scientific progress marching forward and warn Americans about hazardous weather. Losing staff and support raises the risk of critical failures, such as delayed severe weather warnings and broken equipment causing new blind spots when storms threaten. In the long run, failing to invest risks stagnation or even reversing the hard-fought progress the U.S. has made in advancing weather prediction.

With coastal populations and development expanding over the past few decades, and storms becoming stronger, the vulnerability of the U.S. to costly, damaging hurricanes has increased dramatically. It is more important than ever that public investment in hurricane science and forecasting continue.

Brian Tang receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes. He has research collaborations with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society.

– ref. Hurricane forecasts have improved dramatically, saving lives, but federal cuts threaten to stretch NOAA to the breaking point – https://theconversation.com/hurricane-forecasts-have-improved-dramatically-saving-lives-but-federal-cuts-threaten-to-stretch-noaa-to-the-breaking-point-280242

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ryan St Laurent, Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Colorado Boulder

To the untrained eye, the Florida scrub ecosystem isn’t much to look at. Scattered in patches around coastal and inland Florida, the scrub landscape is dominated by shrubs and short oaks, all growing out of sandy soil.

“Scrub” is truly an apt name for it.

But this habitat is home to a number of unique plant and animal species, including the threatened Florida scrub-jay, the only bird found only in Florida.

The list of specialized scrub animals grew longer this spring when I officially named – and found in the wild – a species of moth unique to the Florida scrub.

I’m an evolutionary biologist and entomologist, serving as curator of entomology at the University of Colorado Boulder Museum of Natural History. In March 2026 I, along with my collaborators, Scott Wehrly and Jeff Slotten, published an article in ZooKeys describing this new moth from the Florida scrub.

I colloquially refer to it as the “Florida sack-bearer,” but it’s formally known as Cicinnus albarenicolus, Latin for “white sand dweller.” The name “sack-bearer” indicates that it belongs to a small family of moths known as Mimallonidae whose caterpillars make sacklike cases that they haul around, kind of like the way a hermit crab carries around a shell. There are just over 300 sack-bearer species, with only six, including our new one, known from North America.

The discovery

The recent publication of our scientific paper was the first time the scientific community learned of the moth’s existence, but it is the culmination of more than a decade of work.

I have been studying sack-bearers throughout my professional career, which started as an undergraduate at Cornell University, where I worked in the Cornell University Insect Collection. It was in this collection that a small sample of sack-bearer moths collected in Florida, with a chunky body and pink-hued wings spanning about 1.25-1.5 inches (3-4 centimeters) – medium size for a moth – caught my eye.

I began to wonder whether perhaps this moth was a separate species of sack-bearer, because it looked quite different from the more beige-colored Melsheimer’s sack-bearer that is common all over the eastern United States, including Florida. But I did not yet have enough data to substantiate my theory.

Then as a graduate student at the University of Florida, I delved into learning more about sack-bearer evolution. Whenever I had a free moment, I spent time in the field looking for wild individuals of the still-unnamed Florida sack-bearer. But still, no luck.

Then I spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Even though I was primarily working on a completely different group of moths, I had not forgotten about the Florida moth. And there, in the Smithsonian collections, I found a single specimen of a Florida sack-bearer from 1960.

Fortunately, it was a recent enough specimen to yield a good DNA sample. This allowed me to get the final piece of information that I was looking for: a DNA sequence to confirm that this moth was distinct from its relatives.

The genetic results were unequivocal: The Florida species was clearly distinct, thus confirming my long-held suspicions that this was a new, undescribed species of moth. This was the final piece of information I needed to start writing the paper formally describing and naming the new moth.

Encounter in the wild

As excited as I was to describe a new species, I feared that the moth might already be extinct, since no recent specimens existed and the Florida scrub habitat is highly degraded, down to about 10% of what ecologists estimate was present prior to European settlement.

But I contacted various moth collectors in Florida to see whether anyone had seen this moth recently, and to my surprise one of them had. The co-authors on the Zookeys paper, Jeff Slotten and Scott Wehrly, helped me discover a small set of specimens from the 2010s and 2020s that Scott had collected. This discovery, in late 2025, allowed me to add some new specimens to the paper and update the text reporting this newly discovered collection of more contemporary samples of Florida sack-bearers.

Knowing that all sightings of this moth occurred between March and May, I traveled to Florida in April. I was hoping to see it for myself and learn more about its active times, habitat requirements, diet, mating habits and other aspects of its biology – all still completely unknown. Since the recent specimens were all male, I set the goal to find a female, which would be the first one seen in over 60 years. Finding a female would also be an opportunity to collect eggs.

On April 18, 2026, I traveled to a new site that I had scoped out back in grad school, and sure enough, at 8:49 p.m., I found a female at my specialized moth light trap. This female was followed by two others, and I was able to collect eggs. Hopefully this summer these will yield a bunch of caterpillars so my colleagues and I can observe the moth’s full life cycle and learn more about this elusive insect.

What makes the Florida sack-bearer so special?

Without knowing more about it, it’s challenging to articulate what this moth’s larger role in the ecosystem might be. And that is precisely why this discovery is important.

One possibility that is already becoming clear is that this species may be an excellent indicator of Florida scrub health and how different forest management techniques affect the scrub ecosystem. My recent field work indicates that this particular moth may be thriving in areas experiencing more recent and frequent prescribed burns, but this hypothesis needs further study. My hope is that studying this moth will give a better sense of how to manage scrubs in order to protect this and other species with similar habitat requirements.

The evolution of the Florida sack-bearer also remains a puzzle. Just how did it get to Florida in the first place? White sand scrubs are thought to be older than yellow sand scrubs of Florida and are formed from ancient sand dunes. Perhaps the Florida sack-bearer is an ancient relic of a time when Florida was very different from today.

By studying this moth and its distribution in the state, we may better understand how sack-bearers arrived in North America from Central and South America millions of years ago.

What’s in a name?

In total, only 19 specimens of the Florida sack-bearer were known to me at the time of its formal description. Only three of those were collected after 1964, and those all came from locations near Ocala, Florida. The other 13 specimens are from just five white sand scrub habitats scattered across peninsular Florida. While the news that the moth persists in at least a couple of places is welcome, sites that supported this moth back in the 1960s may no longer have enough scrub habitat due to substantial habitat loss.

It’s possible that this moth has been discovered just in time to realize it’s at risk of going extinct. But my hope is that by naming this rare moth, our team has enabled conservationists and legislators to fight for its protection.

Nothing to disclose.

– ref. A newly rediscovered moth species in Florida may already be at risk – https://theconversation.com/a-newly-rediscovered-moth-species-in-florida-may-already-be-at-risk-281717

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gregory M. Dickinson, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Institute for Humane Studies

You open a free app to do one simple thing. Before you even start, a full-screen message asks whether you want to try the paid version. The “Start free trial” button is large, bright and hard to miss. The option to keep using the free version is smaller, buried at the bottom. The same prompt appears again tomorrow. And the day after that.

A lot of people look at screens like that and think, “Surely this has to be illegal.” We even have a name for them, “dark patterns.” They feel pushy. They waste time. They seem designed to wear you down. But in most cases, they are perfectly lawful.

“Dark pattern” is not a legal term with a clear boundary. It is a broad label for digital designs that nudge, pressure, confuse or trap users. As a legal scholar who studies consumer protection and digital design, I think the most important thing for readers to understand is that the label “dark pattern” covers a broad spectrum.

Some of that spectrum is just annoying. Some of it is aggressive salesmanship. And some of it crosses the line into deception or coercion. Federal and state consumer protection laws are mostly aimed at that last category. They do not ban every design choice people dislike, only those that trick or coerce.

Annoying isn’t illegal

That reality may sound unsatisfying, but it is not unusual. Offline life is full of things that are irritating but not unlawful. Think of the cashier who asks whether you want to sign up for the store credit card, then points out the discount you are turning down, then asks again. Most people know exactly what is happening. They roll their eyes, say no and try to shop somewhere else next time.

The same is true online. A repeated pop-up can be obnoxious. A guilt-inducing button can be tacky. But consumers recognize ordinary annoyance for what it is. In many cases, the market answer is simple: Close the app, ignore the pitch or take your business elsewhere.

Similarly, law does not ban persuasive sales pitches just because they are effective. A car salesperson who keeps steering you toward the upgraded model is trying to influence your choice. So is the airline clerk who offers travel insurance. So is the restaurant server who asks whether you want dessert. Salesmanship is nothing new. Digital design often borrows from familiar techniques.

That helps explain why lawmakers cannot simply outlaw “manipulation.” And so many interfaces are built to persuade, openly and lawfully.

What crosses the line

What the federal FTC Act and analogous state consumer-deception statutes usually care about is not whether a design is annoying. They focus on whether the design is likely to mislead a reasonable consumer. That is the core idea in modern consumer protection law.

So a design is likelier to be unlawful when it hides key facts, makes an optional choice look mandatory or tricks people about the effect of the button they are pressing. A fake countdown timer, a disguised ad, a misleading one-click purchase button or a cancellation path that looks finished when it is not are all different from ordinary hard selling. Those designs do not just pressure users; they can deceive them.

That is also why the app maker’s intent is not always the key question. In many consumer protection cases, a company does not get a free pass just because no one said, “Let’s trick people.” The legal question is often about effect: What would a reasonable user likely understand from this screen?

Research on dark patterns reinforces that concern. Even relatively mild designs can push people into choices they would not otherwise make. And regulators have increasingly focused on subscription flows, hidden fees and cancellation obstacles for exactly that reason.

Why it feels like dark patterns are everywhere

One reason people might think there are no laws against dark patterns is that they see them so often. But that frequency reflects that the term covers a wide range of conduct, from lawful nagging to outright deception.

It also reflects enforcement limits. Regulators cannot chase every irritating screen on every app and website. They have to prioritize the worst cases. That leaves a lot of borderline conduct in the wild, which makes the whole problem feel bigger and murkier to ordinary users.

So when people ask why there is not a law against dark patterns, the best answer is that there already is, but the law does not prohibit every annoying or high-pressure design. It targets lies, misleading cues and coercive obstacles.

That line can be fuzzy. But the fuzziness is not a mistake. It is what you get when the law tries to separate persuasion from deception in a world full of both.

Gregory M. Dickinson 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. Dark patterns on the web are designed to manipulate you – why aren’t they all illegal? – https://theconversation.com/dark-patterns-on-the-web-are-designed-to-manipulate-you-why-arent-they-all-illegal-279961

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rui Bo, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology

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

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What are those orange balls on some power lines? – Maggie, age 8, West Chester, Pennsylvania

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Have you ever looked up while driving on a highway and spotted those big orange balls hanging on power lines? They look a bit like giant toy beads strung along the electric wires.

What in the world are those overgrown basketballs doing up there?

I’m a professor who teaches about and researches power systems, the big networks that move electricity from power plants to our homes, schools and businesses.

Those big orange balls don’t help with electricity flow or improve the efficiency of the power lines, but they do have a very important job. Officially called aviation marker balls or spherical markers, they’re there to help pilots see power lines so airplanes and helicopters don’t crash into them. They’re like bright warning signs in the sky, protecting pilots, passengers and people on the ground below.

Big round warning signs in the sky

Power lines can be very hard to see from an airplane or helicopter, especially when pilots are flying low. Thin metal wires can visually blend into the background of nature.

The orange balls help the lines stand out. You can think of them as being like reflective tape on a bike – just a little something simple that helps people notice a danger before it’s too late.

Orange isn’t a random choice. This vibrant color is very visible to the human eye and especially stands out against the more muted colors of nature – blue sky, green trees or gray clouds. Sometimes the balls are red or white, or even striped, but orange is the most common because it works well in most lighting conditions.

Aviation safety rules in many countries explain which colors should be used so pilots can quickly recognize hazards. Organizations like the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration publish guidelines you can check out about marking obstacles near flight paths.

These balls may look like slightly oversized ping-pong balls from your perspective on the ground. But most are actually much bigger, about the size of a large beach ball, roughly 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 1 meter) across. Each one can weigh 10 to 25 pounds (4.5 to 11 kilograms), about as heavy as a large backpack full of books.

They’re usually made from strong plastic or fiberglass, similar to materials used in boats or playground equipment. That way, they can survive years of sun, rain, snow, wind – and even the occasional bird landing on them.

Even though they sit on wires that carry huge amounts of electricity, the balls themselves are not energized. They’re made of insulating materials, so electricity does not flow through them.

Why are there so many wires up there?

High-voltage power lines are like highways for electric power, carrying electricity from the power plants where it is generated to the places where it is used.

The wires are strung between sturdy metal towers or wooden poles that are very tall to keep dangerous high-voltage electric wires high up in the sky, far away from people on the ground. This design makes it safe to walk, play and drive underneath them. Some transmission towers, especially for very high-voltage lines, can be as tall as a 15-story building.

If you look closely at big transmission lines, you’ll often see three thick wires, sometimes with an additional thinner one on top that’s called a shield wire. Because the shield wire sits higher, lightning is more likely to hit it first, protecting the other wires from a strong blast of electricity that can damage equipment or cause power outages. The shield wire is connected to the ground, so a lightning strike’s electricity can flow safely down the tower and into the earth.

The three main wires work together to carry electricity in a steady rhythm. By sharing the job among three wires instead of one, the system can move more energy with less waste, making it more efficient.

Clamping the balls to the wires

Installing the aviation marker balls is a job for specially trained crews, often working from helicopters. The power line usually stays turned on while the work is being done, so safety rules and careful planning are critical. The ball comes in two halves that clamp around the wire and bolt together tightly.

Once installed, these balls can last 10 to 15 years, depending on weather and conditions. They don’t need much maintenance, but utilities inspect them from time to time to make sure they haven’t cracked or faded too much.

Not every transmission line needs the markers. Usually only places where aircraft are more likely to fly low – such as near rivers, valleys, airports or helicopter routes – will use these brightly colored balls. Most neighborhood power lines are too low to need markers.

Next time you spot those bright orange dots in the sky, you’ll know: They’re not electrical equipment, and their color isn’t random. They’re simple, clever tools helping keep our busy world a little safer.

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

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

Rui Bo 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 are those orange balls on some power lines? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-those-orange-balls-on-some-power-lines-272019

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kevin Maloney, PhD student, Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University

The first half of 2026 has been a chaotic time for U.S. foreign policy: new tariffs, threats to annex Greenland, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

As a researcher focused on the values and rhetoric of American presidents, I study how presidents and their administrations communicate to the public about foreign policy. My primary aim is to understand the values systems and policy priorities that make up a president’s public persona.

I have found the second Trump administration exceptionally difficult to track and assess. Keeping up with Truth Social posts, press conferences and off-the-cuff Oval Office remarks from the president can feel like drinking from a fire hose.

Gone for now are the days when a U.S. president stepped to the lectern and delivered a speech direct from the teleprompter or released a carefully crafted statement that was understood to be official U.S. policy.

In its place is an unpredictable barrage of communication – ranging from traditionally worded executive orders in the mold of previous administrations to an expletive-laden Truth Social post on Easter morning in the midst of Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon name for the war in Iran.

The president’s rhetorical style, heard most recently on his mid-May trip to China, is explained by political allies as part of Trump’s strategic approach and criticized by his opponents as the dangerous musings of an unstable leader.

In either case – whether it’s Trump’s defenders or detractors – it is increasingly difficult to ascertain whether the language of the president signals actual policy positions from the White House.

If the words of the American president no longer function as reliable indicators of U.S. foreign policy, where can the public, U.S. allies and America’s adversaries look to better understand the administration’s geopolitical priorities?

One answer may be found by examining the words of key Cabinet members.

Vance redefines ‘Western’ values

Trump’s second term has introduced a political paradox: because he is president, his words carry enormous weight. And yet, because of his hyperbolic and often erratic communication style, each statement also carries significant political uncertainty.

Will the next social media post threatening to exit NATO hint at a real policy position? Or will it simply disappear into the digital information ecosystem as another “Trump being Trump” moment?

The rhetoric of Cabinet members increasingly serves as a bridge between Trump’s erratic communication style and actual policy.

Public statements delivered in 2025 by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered, I believe, critical insight into the administration’s foreign policy vision and helped lay the groundwork for major policy actions in 2026.

In February 2025, Vance stood at a lectern at the Munich Security Conference to address a gathering of prominent European political and military leaders. Many analysts expected an aggressive speech from Vance criticizing Europe’s spending on defense in the context of shared American-European security concerns, such as NATO and the war in Ukraine.

Instead, Vance argued that Europe’s political elites had failed to defend “Western” values. Speaking over audible gasps from attendees, Vance declared: “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

Using freedom of speech as a shared value, Vance argued that many left-leaning European governments – not authoritarian-led Russia or Hungary – posed the real threat to this cornerstone of Western society.

As the first major foreign policy speech delivered abroad by the second Trump administration, Vance’s remarks signaled a major shift in America’s approach to the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The speech suggested that, in the eyes of the administration, the “values-and-interests” framework that shaped the U.S.-European relationship post-World War II had weakened. In that phrase, “values” are understood as a country’s moral and cultural preferences and its “interests” as the factors that advance its security and prosperity.

Instead, Vance argued that liberal values alone would no longer guarantee cooperation, and the administration made clear it would not avoid public fights over ideological differences with European allies.

The speech also appeared to send a clear signal to right-leaning political leaders in Europe, including then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, that their brand of “Western” values had become increasingly attractive to Washington.

It is not difficult to connect Vance’s Munich speech to the administration’s subsequent embrace of right-leaning political leaders and its pullback from postwar liberal foreign policy priorities, such as a commitment to international aid.

Rubio: Trade over humanitarian aid

One of the most tumultuous domestic periods of Trump 2.0 came during the DOGE process of massive budget cutting, which eliminated programs across the government.

One DOGE flash point was the fate of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which since 1961 had been the American government’s primary organization delivering humanitarian aid globally.

On July 1, 2025, the administration officially announced that USAID would stop providing foreign assistance, which it had been doing in approximately 130 countries.

That same day, Rubio published an article on the State Department’s Substack account titled Make Foreign Aid Great Again, arguing for a new approach that prioritized “trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance.”

Like Vance in Munich, Rubio adopted an overtly aggressive tone in criticizing both USAID and America’s broader humanitarian aid model. Rubio argued that the “charity-based model failed.” Rubio’s rhetoric built on and complemented themes from Vance’s speech.

First, it reinforced the administration’s broader free-ride-is-over argument that prioritized quid pro quo relationships over established liberal values-based commitments. While Vance applied this logic to European allies in the context of “Western” values and military support, Rubio applied it to humanitarian aid projects and America’s relationships across the Global South.

Second, Rubio’s remarks made clear that a quid pro quo foreign policy rooted in what he deemed to be U.S. national interests would increasingly shape State Department decision-making – regardless of the humanitarian consequences from cuts to international aid programs or multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

Hegseth rewrites US rules of war

In September 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stood in the Oval Office alongside Trump to discuss his department’s renaming to the “Department of War.” Hegseth asserted that the War Department would focus on “maximum lethality, not tepid legality; violent effect, not politically correct.”

Viewed alongside the administration’s actions in late 2025 and into 2026 – from attacks on nonmilitary vessels around Venezuela to the extraction of Maduro, to the scale of destructive force deployed against Iran – the “maximum lethality” statement may prove to be one of the most consequential rhetorical moments from a Trump Cabinet official.

As Operation Epic Fury continues, Hegseth has defiantly reaffirmed the administration’s “maximum lethality” posture. At one point he declared that “we negotiate with bombs,” and at another briefing he called for “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” – a practice that violates international law.

These remarks and others underscore the administration’s rejection of international law and diplomacy in favor of military force as the preferred tool of American foreign policy.

Beyond the noise

In 2025, Vance, Rubio and Hegseth articulated new visions of America’s role in the world. In their own ways, they deployed rhetoric that sought to reshape U.S. foreign policy by redefining Western values, embracing quid pro quo relationships and prioritizing military force as guiding principles of the Trump administration’s agenda.

Despite the daily frenetic social posts and statements from Trump, members of his Cabinet will surely continue to project their own moral and political visions of America throughout 2026 and beyond.

Kevin Maloney is affiliated with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

– ref. Trump’s Cabinet dramatically changed American foreign policy while the president made noise – a scholar of presidential rhetoric explains – https://theconversation.com/trumps-cabinet-dramatically-changed-american-foreign-policy-while-the-president-made-noise-a-scholar-of-presidential-rhetoric-explains-281307

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Farah N. Jan, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Pennsylvania

Days after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, 2026, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez denied American forces the use of the Naval Station Rota and the Morón Air Base – installations that had hosted U.S. troops for more than 70 years.

“We are a sovereign country that does not wish to take part in illegal wars,” Sánchez said. U.S. President Donald Trump responded by threatening a full trade embargo against Spain.

Weeks later, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – Trump’s closest European ally and the only EU head of government invited to his second inauguration – broke publicly with Washington.

“When we don’t agree, we must say it,” she said. “And this time, we do not agree.” Rome then refused to let U.S. bombers refuel at a base in southern Italy.

These are not minor diplomatic frictions. As a scholar of alliance politics and nuclear security, I see something much larger than a tactical disagreement. The Iran war’s most consequential casualty may not be in Tehran. It may be American credibility as an ally, and with it, the trans-Atlantic alliance itself.

The Iraq comparison misleads

The initial U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran were launched with virtually no advance consultation with European allies. The Trump administration treated NATO partners not as participants in strategic decision-making but as logistical infrastructure to be commandeered or punished for refusing assistance.

European governments, even those most invested with the U.S., declined to join the campaign. The Trump administration has responded with the embargo threat against Spain and the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany.

“The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social on March 31, 2026.

The reflex in Washington has been to read this as a rerun of 2003, when France and Germany opposed the Iraq War. In January 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as “old Europe” while courting the postcommunist “new Europe,” including Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

On the surface, the parallel is tempting: a unilateral American war in the Middle East, European refusal to participate, trans-Atlantic recriminations.

But the comparison conceals more than it reveals. In 2003, the United States wanted Europe in its coalition. The George W. Bush administration sought United Nations authorization, courted allies and treated European refusal as a problem to be managed.

In 2026, the Trump administration explicitly does not want European input. It views allies as freeloaders and threatens them with economic coercion. It treats their hesitation as cause for retribution rather than negotiation.

The deeper difference is structural. In 2003, the trans-Atlantic alliance still rested on shared commitments to collective defense, open trade and an international, rules-based order.

Today, the Trump administration does not share the commitments that traditionally bound the United States to its European partners, whether on NATO, the Russia-Ukraine war, or the rules governing trade and migration.

The shared values that papered over the Iraq disagreement in 2003, and that allowed President Nicolas Sarkozy to reintegrate France into NATO’s command by 2009, are no longer there to do the work of repair.

The April 2026 collapse of Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule in Hungary left Trump without a serious political ally among major European governments.

The real precedent is Suez

A more illuminating precedent lies further back. In 1956, Britain and France went to war with Egypt over the Suez Canal, in coordination with Israel, deliberately concealing their plans from the Eisenhower administration. Washington responded by threatening to crash the British pound, forcing London and Paris into humiliating retreat.

The crisis is conventionally remembered as the moment Britain accepted that it was no longer an independent great power.

But its more important legacy was strategic. Suez exposed the depth of Europe’s dependence on the United States. That humiliation drove Charles de Gaulle’s pursuit of an independent French nuclear deterrent. It also accelerated European integration and planted the recognition that genuine strategic autonomy would be a generational project.

The Iran war inverts the conditions of that lesson. In 1956, Europeans learned that they could not act independently of Washington. In 2026, they are learning that they cannot rely on Washington’s consent being available, and that the U.S. will act without them, against their stated interests and at their economic expense.

The pattern is the same: Dependence on the U.S. is unsustainable, and autonomous capacity is no longer optional. What has changed is that Europe is now willing to use the financial, economic and military tools it has long possessed in ways it would not have considered before.

The EU’s €90 billion joint-debt loan to Ukraine signals an autonomous European strategic stance. So do discussions of activating the bloc’s anti-coercion trade instrument against U.S. tariffs, France’s nuclear arsenal expansion and offers to “Europeanize” deterrence.

The strategic postures were debated for decades. The Iran war is making them operational.

This is not yet European strategic independence. Europe remains militarily reliant on U.S. air defense, satellite capacity and intelligence.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, for example, has forced an uncomfortable energy reckoning with American liquefied natural gas, Russian pipelines, Middle Eastern hydrocarbons and Chinese-dominated renewable supply chains. None of the available paths to energy security run through trusted partners.

France and Germany still disagree on nearly every detail of how integration should proceed. But the political condition for autonomy, a shared European belief that Washington can no longer be trusted to share strategic decision-making, has crystallized in a way that no previous crisis produced.

The post-1945 trans-Atlantic bargain traded U.S. security guarantees for European deference on global strategy. Iraq 2003 strained that bargain. Trump’s first term cracked it, and the Iran war has broken it.

What replaces it will not be a renewed partnership. It will be a parallel relationship between two powers with sometimes overlapping interests and, increasingly, separate strategic horizons.

In 1956, Europe learned how dependent it was on Washington. In 2026, it is learning that dependence is no longer sustainable.

Eleni Lomtatidze, a student in the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania and at SciencesPo Paris, contributed to this story.

Farah N. Jan 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. Why the Iran war is breaking the US-European strategic alliance – https://theconversation.com/why-the-iran-war-is-breaking-the-us-european-strategic-alliance-281975