Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Aaron Mansfield, Assistant Professor of Sport Management, Merrimack College

Being from Buffalo means getting to eat some of the best wings in the world. It means scraping snow and ice off your car in frigid mornings. And it means making a lifelong vow to the city’s NFL franchise, the Bills – for better or worse, till death do us part.

When I grew up in New York’s second-largest city, my community was bound together by loyalty to a football team that always found new ways to break our hearts. And yet at the start of each NFL season, we always found reasons to hope – we couldn’t help ourselves.

Coming from this football-crazed culture, I often wondered about the psychology of fandom. This eventually led me to pursue a Ph.D. in sport consumer behavior. As a doctoral student, I was most interested in one question: Is fandom good for us?

I found a huge body of research on the psychological and social effects of fandom, and it certainly made being devoted to a team look good. Fandom builds belonging, helps adults make friends, boosts happiness and even provides a buffer against traumatic life events.

So, fandom is great, right?

As famed football commentator Lee Corso would say: “Not so fast, my friend.”

While fandom appears to be a boon for our mental health, strikingly little research had been conducted on the relationship between fandom and physical health.

So I decided to conduct a series of studies – mainly of people in Western countries – on this topic. I found that being a sports fan can have some drawbacks for physical health, especially among the most committed fans.

Reach for the nachos

Playing sports is healthy. But watching them? Not so much.

Tailgating culture revolves around alcohol. Research shows that college sports fans binge drink at significantly higher rates than nonfans, are more likely to do something they later regretted and are more likely to drive drunk. Meanwhile, watch parties encourage being stationary for hours and mindlessly snacking. And, of course, fandom goes hand in hand with heavily processed foods like wings, nachos, pizza and hot dogs.

One fan told me that when watching games, his relationship with food is “almost Pavlovian”; he craves “decadent” foods the same way he seeks out popcorn at the movies.

Inside the stadium, healthy options have traditionally been scarce and overpriced. A Sports Illustrated writer joked in 1966 that fans leave stadiums and arenas with “the same body chemistry as a jelly doughnut.”

Little seems to have changed since. One Gen Z fan I recently interviewed griped, “You might find one salad with a plain piece of lettuce and a quarter of a tomato.”

Eating away the anxiety and pain

The relationship between fandom and physical health isn’t just about guzzling beer, sitting for hours on end or scarfing down hot dogs.

One study analyzed sales from grocery stores. The researchers found that fans consume more calories – and less healthy food – on the day following a loss by their favorite team, a reaction the researchers tied to stress and disappointment.

My colleagues and I found something similar: Fandom induces what’s called “emotional eating.”

Emotions like anger, sadness and disappointment lead to stronger cravings. And this relationship is tied to how your favorite team performs when it matters most. For example, we found that games between rivals and closely contested games yield more pronounced effects. Emotional states generated by the game are also significantly correlated with increased beer sales in the stadium.

High-calorie cultures

In another paper, my co-authors and I found that fans often feel torn between their desire to make healthy choices and their commitment to being a “true fan.”

Every fan base develops its own culture. These unwritten rules vary from team to team, and they aren’t just about wearing a cheesehead hat or waving a Terrible Towel. They also include expectations around drinking, eating and lifestyle.

These health-related norms are shaped by a variety of factors, including the region’s culture, team history and even team sponsorships.

For example, the Cincinnati Bengals partner with Skyline Chili, a regional chain that makes a meat sauce that’s often poured over hot dogs or spaghetti. One Bengals fan I interviewed observed that if you attend a Bengals game, sure, you could eat something else – but a “true fan” eats Skyline.

I have two studies in progress that show how hardcore fans typically align their health behaviors with the health norms of their fan base. This becomes a way to signal their allegiance to the team, improve their standing among fellow fans, and contribute to what makes the fan base distinct in the eyes of its members.

In Buffalo, for example, tailgating often revolves around alcohol – so much so that Bills fans have a reputation for over-the-top drinking rituals.

And in New Orleans, Saints fans often link fandom to Louisiana food traditions. As one fan explained: “People make a bunch of fried food or huge pots of gumbo or étouffée, and eat all day – from hours before the game until hours after.”

A new generation of health-conscious fans

The fan experience is shaped by the culture in which it is embedded. Teams actively help shape these cultures, and there’s a business argument to be had for teams to play a bigger role in changing some of these norms.

Gen Z is strikingly health-conscious. They’re also less engaged with traditional fandom.

If stadiums and tailgates continue to revolve around beer and nachos, why would a generation attuned to fitness influencers and “fitspiration” buy in? To reach this market, I think the sports industry will need to promote its professional sports teams in new ways.

Some teams are already doing so. The British soccer team Liverpool has partnered with the exercise equipment company Peloton. Another club, Manchester City, has teamed up with a nonalcoholic beer brand as the official sponsor of its practice uniforms.

And several European soccer clubs have even joined a “Healthy Stadia” movement, revamping in-stadium food options and encouraging fans to walk and bike to the stadium.

For the record, I don’t think the solution is replacing typical fan foods with smoothies and salads. Alienating core consumers is generally not a sound business strategy.

I think it’s reasonable, however, to suggest sports teams might add more healthy options and carefully evaluate the signals they send through sponsorships.

As one fan I recently interviewed said: “The NFL has had half-assed efforts like Play 60” – a campaign encouraging kids to get at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day – “while also making a ton of money from beer, food and, back in the day, cigarette advertisements. How can sports leagues seriously expect people to be healthier if they promote unhealthy behaviors?”

Today’s consumers want to support brands that reflect their values. This is particularly true for Gen Zers, many of whom are savvy enough to see through hollow campaigns and quick to reject hypocrisy. In the long run, I think this type of dissonance – sandwiching a Play 60 commercial between ads for Uber Eats and Anheuser-Busch – will prove counterproductive.

I, as much as anyone else, understand what makes fandom special – and yes, I’ve eaten my share of wings during Bills games. But public health is a pressing concern, and though the sports industry is well-positioned to address this issue, fandom isn’t helping. Actually, my research suggests it’s having the opposite effect.

Striking the balance I’m advocating will be tricky, but the sports industry is filled with bright problem-solvers. In the film “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt’s character, Billy Beane, famously says sports teams must “adapt or die.” He was referring to the need for baseball teams to integrate analytics into their decision-making.

Professional sports teams eventually got that message. Maybe they’ll get this one, too.

Aaron Mansfield 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. Wings, booze and heartbreak – what my research says about the hidden costs of sports fandom – https://theconversation.com/wings-booze-and-heartbreak-what-my-research-says-about-the-hidden-costs-of-sports-fandom-265158

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Cynthia Lindquist, Director of Tribal Initiatives & Collaborations, University of North Dakota

Most Native American high school students do not attend or graduate from college.

As a tribal member of Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota and the former president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, North Dakota, I recognize the difference that tribal colleges and universities, like the one I used to work at, can have in rerouting Native students’ education journeys.

Tribal colleges and universities, or TCUs, are public institutions that are founded and run by a Native American tribe and focus on serving Native American students and communities.

The approximately 3.9 million Native Americans living in the U.S. have long recognized that TCUs are unique institutions that help Native students succeed in school and earn higher education degrees.

Most Americans, though, have no idea that tribal colleges and universities even exist, let alone know how they work.

Understanding tribal colleges

TCUs enroll approximately 30,000 students each year, including some non-Native students. The median annual tuition at TCUs is US$3,572, making them more affordable than most other public universities.

There are 35 accredited TCUs across 13 states, including Montana, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota. All of these schools are nonprofits.

While a single Native tribe sometimes sets up a tribal college, in other cases a consortium of tribes or the federal government helps establish a school.

Despite their differences, tribal colleges and universities all have the same mission of teaching Indigenous history, culture and languages.

All the tribal colleges also offer associate degrees and certifications. Twenty-two of them have only baccalaureate programs, and nine have master’s programs. Navajo Technical University, a tribal college in Crownpoint, New Mexico, which has the largest enrollment size of all the TCUs, began offering a first of its kind doctorate program in Diné Studies in 2024. This program focuses on the language, culture and history of the Diné people, also known as Navajo people.

Affordability has always been a consideration when TCUs set tuition and fees, since most are located on rural American Indian reservations with high unemployment and poverty rates, as well as few available jobs.

TCUs keep their tuition relatively low in part because a majority of their funding comes from the federal government. They also receive funding from philanthropic organizations.

TCUs also generally have minimal overhead costs, since most students live off-campus and only a handful of these colleges and universities offer on-campus housing. Most TCUs have both in-person and online courses.

While there is no single profile of a TCU student, I found that it is common to encounter a 30-year-old, single mother who works full time while trying to earn a college degree.

A growth in college enrollment

In 1968, just 181 Native Americans graduated from a four-year college.

That same year, the Navajo Nation established the first tribal college, then called the Navajo Community College, in Tsaile, Arizona. This school is now called Diné College.

Several factors prevented most Native American students from attending a college or university.

The cost of college was prohibitive, and many Native American students were also not adequately prepared for college in high school. These students and their families also feared that higher education could force them to assimilate into Western and white culture, and erase their own Native traditions and languages.

A long political relationship

When considering this historical context, it is important to understand that Native Americans have a unique relationship with the federal government.

Native Americans largely consider this relationship a political one, bound by the various legal precedents, federal policies and executive orders from the 1800s and onward. These orders and policies from the past several hundred years vary, but they often focus on questions of land, assimilation and the political independence of Native tribes.

There are also treaties and orders that focus on education and spell out the federal government’s responsibility to help coordinate and give money to support tribal education.

In 1978, Congress approved the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act, which recognized tribal colleges as higher education institutions and established that the federal government would regularly help fund these schools.

Alongside the creation of new tribal colleges and universities over the past several decades, more and more Native people living on reservations have graduated from high school and received higher education degrees.

The percentage of Native college graduates rose 125% from 1990 to 2020. While 4.5% of Native students living on reservations received a college degree in 1990, that percentage rose to 10.3% with at least a college degree in 2020, according to findings by Harvard Kennedy School in September 2025.

Yet, unlike the high school trends, Native people still graduate college at a much lower rate than the general American population.

In 1990, 20.3% of all Americans had at least a college degree. In 2020, 34.3% of Americans had a college degree at a minimum, according to the Harvard Kennedy School findings.

A lasting impact

While tribal colleges and universities receive state and federal funding, they are chronically underfunded and often operate in survival mode. In some cases, they lack money to make needed repairs on campus buildings.

One major reason for this shortfall: While Congress agreed in the late 1970s to annually give tribal colleges $8,000 for each Native student they enroll, it has not met this financial and political commitment.

Tribal colleges annually receive $250 million less than what the federal government promised them, a 2024 ProPublica investigation found.

Tribal college and universities’ futures were cast in doubt in the spring of 2025, when the Trump administration announced a proposal to cut the Bureau of Indian Education’s annual budget from $183 million to $22 million. The Bureau of Indian Education is part of the Department of the Interior and oversees education for Native students.

But the Department of Education went on to announce in September that it would make a one-time, $495 million investment in historically Black colleges and universities and TCUs.

TCU leaders say they are still trying to understand the significance of this funding announcement and what it will result in.

I think it is important to recognize that TCUs make broad contributions to society, well beyond the impact they have on individual students.

TCUs teach entrepreneurship and business development and serve as pilot sites in launching businesses, for example.

For every federal dollar invested in tribal colleges, the schools return $1.60 in tax revenue through the increased tax payments of their alumni and their alumni’s employers, according to a September 2025 report by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, a national organization that represents TCUs.

TCU alumni also generated $3.8 billion in added income, or gross domestic product, to the national economy from October 2022 through September 2023.

These schools offer a unique pathway for Native students to attend a higher education institution, while teaching them the skills they need to build a stable career.

I served as President of Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC) one of the 34 tribal colleges located in North Dakota and that is affiliated with AIHEC. I am a member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Tribe who chartered CCCC in the 1970s. As a tribal college President, I served on the AIHEC Board of Directors and its Executive Committee.

– ref. Tribal colleges and universities aren’t well known, but are a crucial steppingstone for Native students – https://theconversation.com/tribal-colleges-and-universities-arent-well-known-but-are-a-crucial-steppingstone-for-native-students-261222

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Rohan Shah, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Mississippi; Institute for Humane Studies

A potentially worrisome trend is emerging among young adults. Instead of landing a job and moving to the big city after graduation, many are moving back into their childhood homes instead. About 1.5 million more adults under 35 live with their parents today than a decade ago. That’s a 6.3% jump, more than double the rate of growth for the young adult population overall.

The issue is affordability. Over the past decade, urban rents have climbed about 4% per year, while wages for full-time workers have increased by only 0.6% annually. That means it’s harder than ever to live in a big city on the typical salary – especially if you’re a new graduate without much work experience.

The situation is even more challenging for aspiring homeowners: The median house price in the U.S. has risen about 90% in just 10 years, or more than 6% each year. And as prices rise – the median home sells for more than $400,000 now – so too do the ages of homebuyers. The median first-time U.S. homebuyer is 38 years old, up from 31 about a decade ago.

Why is the rent so high?

Put simply, there isn’t enough housing. As an economist, I know that when demand rises faster than supply, prices have to increase. And supply is severely limited in the places where people most want to live: big cities such as New York and San Francisco.

In most of these cities, planning and zoning laws prevent developers from building enough to meet demand. For example, rezoning a plot of land from commercial to residential often requires mountains of paperwork. And in many cities, objections from neighbors can stall a proposed development. These are just two of many obstacles local governments throw in homebuilders’ way.

One city that has tried something different is Austin, Texas. After deliberately relaxing its zoning laws a few years ago, Austin has seen a boom in home construction. Rents fell by 10% in one year and by as much as 22% in two years after that change. By making it easier to build, Austin has made it cheaper to live there.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Austin has a far lower share of its young adults living with their parents than many other cities do. Just 6% of working adults in the Austin metro area live with their parents, one analysis found, versus nearly 14% in Greater San Antonio and 20% in Greater Los Angeles.

The pros and cons of living with the ’rents

One obvious advantage of living with parents is that they tend to charge below-market rents, or nothing at all. That makes it easier to save for a deposit on a house, helping young adults get on the property ladder sooner than they would otherwise. Indeed, homeownership rates among those 25 to 34 have risen slightly since 2016.

There are also potential disadvantages, however, particularly when it comes to socializing. Living at home with parents can make it much more challenging to meet new people. This, in turn, could partly help explain why Americans are getting married and having children later in life. These delays might not seem important, but they can leave people feeling like they’re behind in life, which can affect their health and well-being.

I also wonder whether living with parents is indirectly making young adults unhappier at work. That’s because older adults often live far from the urban centers where young people are most likely to find jobs directly related to their degrees. Job satisfaction rates are substantially lower among 18- to 29-year-olds than among the rest of the working population.

A problem for the entire US

The housing shortage isn’t just an issue for young adults. A recent analysis I found insightful was headlined “The housing theory of everything.” It argued that the issue helps explain at least part of the current malaise in the U.S. economy.

For example, when people can’t live and work where they want, they’re unable to use their talents fully. That contributes to the relatively slow productivity growth the U.S. has experienced in recent years.

Similarly, if people can’t live in areas where they might meet and work with like-minded individuals, they have fewer opportunities to share ideas, which can hinder innovation.

And if the housing shortage is indeed encouraging young adults to delay having children, it could make it harder for the U.S. to fund Social Security and other government programs in the future.

Making it easier to build new homes in places people want to live and work could go a long way to easing these problems. It’s possible high rents translate into high barriers to adulthood, too.

I am acquaintances with the authors of the article “The Housing Theory of Everything.”

– ref. More young adults are living with their parents than previous generations did – https://theconversation.com/more-young-adults-are-living-with-their-parents-than-previous-generations-did-264570

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By David Higgins, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

More than three-quarters of U.S. counties and jurisdictions are experiencing declines in childhood vaccination rates, a trend that began in 2019, according to a September 2025 NBC News–Stanford University investigation. The report also found a “large swath” of the U.S. no longer has the “basic, ground-level immunity” needed to stop the spread of measles.

Dr. David Higgins, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado CU Anschutz Medical Center and a pediatrician who researches vaccines, discusses the dangers of not vaccinating your children.

The Conversation has collaborated with SciLine to bring you highlights from the discussion, edited for brevity and clarity.

What vaccines are typically required for schoolchildren, and why?

David Higgins: The vaccine requirements for kids to attend school are set by states, not the federal government. Most states require kindergartners get vaccines for pertussis – that’s whooping cough – and tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.

For older kids, a booster of the tetanus and pertussis vaccine is typically required, as well as a vaccine for meningococcal disease.

Vaccines reduce the risk of outbreaks in places where transmission of these diseases is easy. Not only do vaccinations help keep both students and teachers safe, it also encourages overall higher community coverage for these vaccines.

How do scientists track the safety of vaccines over time?

Higgins: Before vaccines are approved, they undergo rigorous trials. During this process, scientists look at the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, testing it first in small groups to assess safety, then in larger groups to confirm protection and detect uncommon side effects. That process continues after the vaccine is approved. Those systems continually monitor the safety of vaccines, both here in the U.S. as well as around the world.

What are the vaccination coverage trends for kindergartners?

Higgins: What we have seen is a small downward trend since 2019, the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It slipped from 95% of new kindergartners being up to date on many of their routine vaccines to about 92%.

That’s a small percentage decrease, so a great majority of parents are still vaccinating their kids. But at the same time, anything below our target of 95% for diseases like measles becomes a problem, because that’s below the level that’s needed for what we call herd immunity, or community immunity. When that happens, it’s not a matter of if, but when, we see an outbreak of these infectious diseases.

And while nationwide rates are important to look at, outbreaks happen at local community levels. For example, earlier this year, an outbreak of measles in West Texas spread rapidly through communities where vaccination rates had slipped well below the state average.

So, the vaccination rate at your own school or community is much more meaningful than what the national vaccination rate is.

How do non-medical vaccine exemptions work?

Higgins: First, actual medical exemptions are rare, and these occur when the vaccine is unsafe for the child to receive, like when he or she has a known severe allergic reaction to vaccine ingredients.

Non-medical exemptions for vaccines are often for religious, personal or philosophical reasons. They have been increasing for the past several years, rising from the range of 1 to 2% up to 3.6% in the 2024–25 school year. That’s a small increase, but again, it’s still concerning.

{What are some reasons why parents are} Why are some parents vaccine hesitant?

Higgins: There are multiple reasons. These include misinformation which algorithm-driven echo chambers on social media can spread at an alarming rate right now. Also, Americans report less trust in institutions and experts, and studies have found growing partisanship around vaccines.

Additionally, vaccines are victims of their own success. They have worked so well that many diseases like polio aren’t routinely seen anymore. That might lead a parent to think the risk for their child is so low that the vaccine is not necessary. But the fact is, vaccines are simply holding these diseases at bay. And as vaccination rates drop, these diseases will come back and more kids will be at risk.

What advice do you have for parents?

Higgins: The most important thing you can do as a parent is to keep your kids up to date on required vaccines. That includes the annual flu shot. Follow your state’s requirements and current recommendations from trusted sources like the American Academy of Pediatrics and your own personal pediatrician to know which vaccines your child should have.

You also want to reinforce other common sense approaches to keeping your children healthy. Make sure they know how to wash their hands properly and that they stay home when they’re sick. Teach them to sneeze and cough into their elbow instead of into their hands – even though doing so isn’t a perfect solution.

As a pediatrician, I love when my families come and talk to me about their concerns. I help them walk through their worries so they can feel more confident that they’re making a truly informed decision that’s in the best interest of their child’s health.

SciLine is a free service based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a nonprofit that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.

David Higgins is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is also on the board of directors (volunteer) for Immunize Colorado.

– ref. Even small drops in vaccination rates for US children can lead to disease outbreaks – https://theconversation.com/even-small-drops-in-vaccination-rates-for-us-children-can-lead-to-disease-outbreaks-265555

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Richard J. Callahan, Jr., Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Gonzaga University

In October 2025, Cecil Roberts will officially retire from his role as president of the United Mine Workers of America. A sixth-generation coal miner, he has led the union for 30 years. Only one man held the role longer: John L. Lewis, whom many consider one of the most important labor leaders of the 20th century.

Roberts has seen the union through an especially difficult period for the coal industry and grew up immersed in it. He was raised in Cabin Creek, West Virginia, where his great-grandmother – an activist in her own right – let miners camp on her property during a legendary strike in 1912. Bill Blizzard, his great-uncle, led miners during the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in U.S. history. Both of his grandfathers died in mine accidents.

And there’s another way Roberts is steeped in Appalachian history: Before an audience of workers, observers have often noted, he speaks like a preacher. Roberts likens miners’ struggles to biblical stories, references the power of God and the teachings of Jesus, and speaks in the dynamic cadences found in an Appalachian church.

“Be like Jesus,” he told a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, in 2015, opposing a “right to work” bill that allowed workers in union-run shops to opt out of paying dues. “Jesus saw the money changers in the temple, and Jesus drove the money changers from the temple. So let me tell the National Right to Work Committee, the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch Brothers, and all those who gave money: you got your money’s worth, but we’re not for sale in West Virginia.”

“How many of you have been to a Baptist church? We’re going to take up a collection. It is altar call time,” he continued. “Now, I’m going to ask you something: Are you fed up? Let me hear you say, ‘Fed up.’… Are you so fed up that you are now fired up? Let me hear you say, ‘Fired up!’”

Capping off the rousing call-and-response, he shouted, “God bless all of you, you’re the salt of the earth!”

Roberts’ style is a glimpse into a bigger story. For over a century, coal has transformed central Appalachia: from the shape of the landscape to place names, and from folk music and crafts to economic conditions.

All the while, religion has been transforming in the mountains, too. Labor and religion are deeply entangled here – a subject I explored in my book “Work and Faith in the Kentucky Coal Fields: Subject to Dust.”

‘Railroad religion’

In the 1880s, two groups rushed into the central Appalachian Mountains: industrialists seeking coal, and missionaries seeking moral reform. Both changed the region forever, and their stories were intertwined.

At the time, central Appalachia was widely depicted in the popular press as a backward, ignorant region whose mountainous terrain kept its people isolated, outside the flow of progress – a stereotype still common today. Equating economic progress with moral progress, many Americans assumed that developing industry would lift people out of what they perceived as fatalism and superstition.

The coal industry used this idea to promote its rapid exploitation of mountain resources. Companies built railroads to connect the region to the national market, developed industrial coal mines and reshaped the central Appalachian economy. Missionaries opened churches, schools and camps.

Company-owned coal towns encompassed miners’ lives. People who had long farmed for themselves and lived, as the Bible told them to, “by the sweat of their brow,” became dependent upon coal companies as mine development shrank the size of family farms. Not only did employers own the miners’ houses, but they also paid workers in “scrip,” which was redeemable only at the company store.

Many company towns included theaters, offered films and music, and even built churches and paid pastors’ salaries. These were typically mainline Protestant churches, such as Methodist or Presbyterian.

To some Appalachian natives, these denominations were known as “railroad religion” because of the way they entered the mountains. And, for many miners, these were the churches of management. When there was labor unrest, the coal town churches tended to side with the companies, advising miners against strikes or agitation.

Faith and action

The churches of most miners born in central Appalachia, meanwhile, were in the mountain communities – independent Baptist or Holiness congregations whose pastors were usually miners themselves.

Pastors preached about the dangers and sacrifices miners faced deep underground, in an age of few regulations. God was on the side of the oppressed and downtrodden, they stressed – and those who gained at others’ expense would ultimately face divine judgment.

Their passionate preaching was meant to inspire action, whether it was committing one’s life to Jesus or to the union. Labor rights were deeply understood as religious issues, rooted in Christian concerns for justice and care.

John Sayles’ 1987 film “Matewan” powerfully depicted the divided role that religion played in West Virginia’s coalfields. One preacher, played by Sayles, equates the union with “the Prince of Darkness.” Another, a young miner, advocates in biblical terms for the union’s righteousness and helps to lead a strike. The result was the Matewan Massacre of 1920: a bloody battle between miners and armed guards hired by the mine owners.

Miner preachers and independent churches were central to the organization of miners in eastern Kentucky in the 1930s, too, during another period of violence between mine operators and miners over conditions, wages and unionization. It was during this time that miner’s wife and singer Sarah Ogan Gunning penned “Dreadful Memories,” turning the traditional hymn “Precious Memories” into a visceral depiction of miners’ struggle and a call for unionization:

“Dreadful memories, how they linger,
How they ever flood my soul.
How the workers and their children
Died from hunger and from cold.”

Looking to the future

Today, it is still not surprising to find religious – particularly Christian – rhetoric in labor organizing. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain is another example of a union leader whose speeches draw from the Bible.

But the dynamics of religion and class forged by industrial mining have shaped central Appalachia’s culture in lasting ways particular to the coalfields. The history of labor struggle, infused with religious idioms, is a source of identity and values evident in everything from union meetings in churches to prayers on picket lines.

Today, the United Mine Workers of America is focused less on coal itself, which miners know cannot last forever. The union represents members in other sectors, too, including public employees, manufacturing, health care and employees of the Navajo Nation. It has also focused its work on an equitable transition to renewable energy: one that accounts for the economic, cultural and environmental destruction that a single-industry economy has wreaked on central Appalachia.

Likewise, the United Mine Workers of America has fought to hold coal companies to their pension and health care obligations toward retired and sick miners whose work fueled the country and made companies rich.

And that struggle, Roberts would say, is a religious one as well.

Richard J. Callahan, Jr. 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. From the pulpit to the picket line: For many miners, religion and labor rights have long been connected in coal country – https://theconversation.com/from-the-pulpit-to-the-picket-line-for-many-miners-religion-and-labor-rights-have-long-been-connected-in-coal-country-262472

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Wendy Netter Epstein, Professor of Law, DePaul University

As the federal government entered a shutdown on Oct. 1, 2025, competing narratives quickly emerged about the cause.

Some Republican lawmakers objected to Democrats’ push to include an extension of the expanded Affordable Care Act premium subsidies in a short-term funding bill and cited concerns about long-term spending. Democratic leaders countered that the subsidies are not a new demand but rather the continuation of a program that has helped keep record numbers of Americans insured since the pandemic – and therefore that the issue could not be delayed.

The result is a standoff that blends fiscal and policy disagreements – a hallmark of contemporary budget politics.

As experts in health law, we see this issue as simple but consequential from a legal standpoint. Congress authorized the enhanced subsidies in 2021, originally to cushion the economic fallout from COVID-19 for families, and extended them through 2025 in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Without new legislation, the subsidies revert to pre-2021 levels on Jan. 1, 2026 – which would lead to a jump in the cost of health insurance and would make coverage unaffordable for millions of Americans.

Enhanced subsidies explained

Most Americans under age 65 get insurance through their employers, which the federal government subsidizes by making it tax-free. Medicare, the program for older Americans, and Medicaid, the program that mainly serves low-income Americans, are heavily supported by subsidies too.

But as of 2025, about 1 in 6 people under age 65 do not have access to this coverage, including many small-business owners and tradespeople, as well as part-time workers and those in the gig economy. For them, unsubsidized health insurance can be prohibitively expensive.

To address this affordability problem, the ACA provided for households earning between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level to receive subsidies for purchasing policies on the ACA marketplace, effectively lowering premiums. The original law limited subsidies only to those making under 400% of the federal poverty level, which is, for a family of four in 2025, around US$128,000 per year. A family making $129,000 a year, however, would have to pay full price.

The American Rescue Plan temporarily made two major changes in 2021:

• It removed the 400%-of-poverty eligibility ceiling, extending help to many middle-income families.

• It capped the maximum household contribution at 8.5% of income for everyone, ensuring affordability regardless of income.

If these reforms expire in 2026, the Internal Revenue Service must revert to the older, less generous formula.

What the subsidies accomplished

The enhanced subsidies drove ACA marketplace participation to historic highs – more than 24 million people selected plans for 2025, up from about 11 million in 2020. The Department of Health and Human Services found disproportionate enrollment gains among Black and Latino Americans, helping to reduce racial disparities in coverage.

For many low-income enrollees, mid-level plans – called silver plans in the ACA marketplace – effectively became free. Middle-income families who previously earned just above the cutoff gained meaningful relief, sometimes saving thousands of dollars a year.

What happens if subsidies expire?

Analysts broadly agree that returning to the pre-2021 rules would mean large cost increases and coverage losses. On average, the premiums that Americans will pay for ACA marketplace plans would more than double. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that average annual out-of-pocket premiums for an individual would jump from about $888 in 2025 to $1,900 in 2026.

With these increases, millions of Americans will lose their health insurance coverage. The Urban Institute, a think tank, projects that 7.3 million fewer people would receive subsidized marketplace coverage and 4.8 million more would become uninsured.

This is highly consequential, as research shows that insurance coverage saves lives by ensuring access to care. Knocking nearly 5 million people off insurance may cause as many as 500 additional deaths per year.

Losses would disproportionately impact low- and middle-income families. Free premium plans would disappear. Those making below 250% of the federal poverty level could see their net premiums rise more than fourfold, while those between 250% and 400% would see their premiums double. What’s more, rural Americans, already under pressure from the state of the economy, face higher risks.

The fiscal and policy trade-offs

On the flip side, making the enhanced credits permanent would add about US$350 billion to federal deficits between 2026 and 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. Proponents argue that the cost is justified by reduced medical debt, fewer uninsured, greater household stability and ultimately saving lives. Short-term savings from cutting the subsidies would also lead to higher health care costs, longer-term. But critics worry it’s a broad and expensive way to support affordability, benefiting some higher-income households that could otherwise afford coverage, even though it would cost more than 8.5% of their income.

Another concern is how the subsidies affect price competition. Under the ACA, the government pays most of the difference between what a household is expected to contribute and the actual cost of a standard benchmark plan. That means if health insurance companies raise their premiums, those who receive subsidies don’t feel the effect of the premium increases, because the federal subsidy simply grows to cover it. That means companies have fewer reasons to compete on price.

Legal and administrative constraints

Because the subsidies are written into the tax code, only Congress can extend them or make them permanent. The question of whether to renew them was already debated strenuously when Congress passed the big tax and spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025. By omitting the subsidies, the bill effectively raised health care costs for millions of middle-income Americans. States that run their own marketplaces may add some aid, but few can match the scale of federal support.

Administrative timing matters too. The IRS, health insurers and the online marketplace all need to know how the subsidy amounts will be calculated – in other words, which income limits and premium caps Congress wants to use. These figures determine how much financial help people get when they sign up for coverage. Late or temporary fixes can create confusion for both consumers and administrators.

Options before Congress

Lawmakers have several options, each with different trade-offs.

A permanent extension would provide stability for consumers and insurers – but at the cost of higher long-term federal spending. A short-term renewal of one to four years could soften the immediate jump in premiums while giving Congress time to reassess the policy, but it would continue the cycle of temporary fixes.

Alternatively, a targeted approach might preserve the larger subsidies for lower-income households but gradually reduce assistance for higher earners so that they aren’t guaranteed a cap of 8.5% of their income for insurance. This would make the policy more fiscally restrained but less universal.

Some legislators have also proposed offsetting the cost of ACA subsidies by pairing an extension with savings elsewhere in the health system. Those savings could come from trimming what the government pays insurers to lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs or by reducing Medicare payments to doctors.

Each of these options reflects a different balance among affordability, fiscal responsibility and administrative simplicity. Together, they highlight how difficult it is to design a policy that meets all three goals at once.

A structural challenge

The problem isn’t just political – it’s built into how time-limited programs like the enhanced ACA subsidies are designed. The subsidies have always reflected partisan divides, but their temporary nature makes those divides even sharper. Lawmakers limited them to a few years to keep costs down, but that choice now means Congress has to reopen the same debate every year.

When deadlines for renewing programs collide with larger funding fights, important benefits can lapse, not because lawmakers chose to end them but because the fights over broader spending leave little room for resolution.

In the end, it’s up to Congress to decide not only whether these subsidies continue, but whether big social policies like this should be settled through last-minute budget showdowns. For now, getting the government running and keeping health insurance affordable are part of the same fight.

Wendy Netter Epstein is a member of the Illinois Health Benefits Exchange Advisory Committee.

Christopher Robertson 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. Health insurance subsidy standoff pits affordable care for millions against federal budget constraints – https://theconversation.com/health-insurance-subsidy-standoff-pits-affordable-care-for-millions-against-federal-budget-constraints-266851

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aimee Pugh Bernard, Associate Professor of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Every day, your immune system performs a delicate balancing act, defending you from thousands of pathogens that cause disease while sparing your body’s own healthy cells. This careful equilibrium is so seamless that most people don’t think about it until something goes wrong.

Autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis are stark reminders of what happens when the immune system mistakes your own cells as threats it needs to attack. But how does your immune system distinguish between “self” and “nonself”?

The 2025 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine honors three scientists – Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell – whose groundbreaking discoveries revealed how your immune system maintains this delicate balance. Their work on two key components of immune tolerance – regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene – transformed how researchers like me understand the immune system, opening new doors for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer.

How immune tolerance works

While the immune system is designed to recognize and eliminate foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria, it must also avoid attacking the body’s own tissues. This concept is called self-tolerance.

For decades, scientists thought self-tolerance was primarily established in the parts of the body that make immune cells, such as the thymus for T cells and the bone marrow for B cells. There, newly created immune cells that attack “self” are eliminated during development through a process called central tolerance.

However, some of these self-reactive immune cells escape this process of elimination and are released into the rest of the body. Sakaguchi’s 1995 discovery of a new class of immune cells, called regulatory T cells, or Tregs, revealed another layer of protection: peripheral tolerance. These cells act as security guards of the immune system, patrolling the body and suppressing rogue immune responses that could lead to autoimmunity.

While Sakaguchi identified the cells, Brunkow and Ramsdell in 2001 uncovered the molecular key that controls them. They found that mutations in a gene called FOXP3 caused a fatal autoimmune disorder in mice. They later showed that similar mutations in humans lead to immune dysregulation and a rare and severe autoimmune disease called IPEX syndrome, short for immunodysregulation polyendocrinopathy enteropathy X-linked syndrome. This disease results from missing or malfunctioning regulatory T cells.

In 2003, Sakaguchi confirmed that FOXP3 is essential for the development of regulatory T cells. FOXP3 codes for a type of protein called a transcription factor, meaning it helps turn on the genes necessary for regulatory T cells to develop and function. Without this protein, these cells either don’t form or fail to suppress harmful immune responses.

Harnessing the immune system for medicine

Regulatory T cells can be heroes or villains, depending on the context. When regulatory T cells don’t work, it can lead to disease. A breakdown in immune tolerance can result in autoimmune diseases, where the immune system attacks healthy tissues. Conversely, in cancer, regulatory T cells can be too effective in suppressing immune responses that might otherwise destroy tumors.

Understanding how FOXP3 and regulatory T cells work launched a new era in immunotherapies that harness the immune system to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer. For autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes, researchers are exploring ways to boost the function of Tregs. For cancer, the goal is to inhibit Tregs, allowing the immune system to target tumors more aggressively.

Beyond disease treatment, this research may also improve organ transplantation, where immune tolerance is crucial to prevent rejection. Scientists are exploring how to engineer or expand Tregs to help the body accept transplanted tissues over the long term.

Continuing to unlock the secrets of immune regulation can help lead to a future where the immune system can be precisely tuned like a thermostat – whether to turn it down in autoimmunity or rev it up against cancer.

The 2025 Nobel Prize reminds us that science, at its best, doesn’t just explain the world – it changes lives.

Aimee Pugh Bernard is affiliated with Immunize Colorado as a volunteer and unpaid board member.

– ref. How does your immune system stay balanced? A Nobel Prize-winning answer – https://theconversation.com/how-does-your-immune-system-stay-balanced-a-nobel-prize-winning-answer-266842

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Elizabeth Chiarello, Associate Professor of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis

Imagine walking into your pharmacy, handing over your prescription and having it denied. Now imagine that the reason is not insufficient insurance coverage or the wrong dose, but a pharmacist who personally objects to your medication. What right does a pharmacist have to make moral decisions for their patients?

Lawmakers have wrestled with this question for decades. It reemerged in August 2025 when two pharmacists sued Walgreens and the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, saying they had been punished after refusing to dispense gender-affirming care medications that go against their religious beliefs.

According to the pharmacists, Walgreens refused their requests for a formal religious accommodation, citing state law. One pharmacist had her hours reduced; the other was let go. If Minnesota law does not allow such an accommodation, their lawsuit argues, it violates religious freedom rights.

As a sociologist of law and medicine, I’ve spent the past 20 years studying how pharmacists grapple with tensions between their personal beliefs and employers’ demands. Framing the problem as a tension between religious freedom and patients’ rights is only one approach. Debates about pharmacists’ discretion over what they dispense also raise bigger questions about professional rights – and responsibilities.

Duty to dispense?

The most famous controversy, perhaps, dealt with contraception. In the early 2000s, some pharmacists refused to dispense Plan B, also known as “emergency contraception” or the “morning-after pill.” Their refusal stemmed from a belief that it caused an abortion.

That is inaccurate, according to medical authorities. When Plan B first became available in 1999, the label said the medication might work by expelling an egg that had already been fertilized. In 2022, the Food and Drug Administration relabeled Plan B to say that it acts before fertilization. From a medical perspective, both mechanisms are contraception, not abortion.

States responded to pharmacists’ refusals by adopting “responsibility laws.” Some states adopted “conscience clauses” that permitted pharmacists not to fill the prescription. Others opted for “duty to dispense” laws that required pharmacists or pharmacies to provide the medication, or “refuse and refer” laws obligating objecting pharmacists to hand the prescription off to a colleague.

This fight largely broke down across political lines. Groups that oppose abortion rights argued that pharmacists should have the right to opt out, while groups in favor of abortion rights argued that pharmacists should be required to dispense.

As this fight escalated, the conflict became about more than contraception or abortion. It revealed Americans’ views about what kinds of professionals pharmacists should be, and whether they are professionals at all – that is, members of occupational groups that have specialized knowledge and skills, and exclusive rights to do particular kinds of work.

In 2015, for example, the advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice American – now called Reproductive Freedom for All – released an ad with a man and a woman in bed, their feet hanging out of the sheets. Stuck between them was someone else wearing heavy black shoes. “Who invited the pharmacist?” the ad asked.

Pro-choice organizations insisted that pharmacists had no right to question a doctor’s prescription. “A pharmacist’s job is to dispense medication, not moral judgment,” said the president of Planned Parenthood Chicago.

Some pharmacists felt that such messages did not just criticize “moral gatekeeping” but also undermined their claims to professional authority. Pharmacists undergo six years of training to earn a doctorate and are health care’s medication specialists. The idea that pharmacists were simply technicians, hired to fill whatever a prescription said, made them seem like physicians’ underlings.

Keeping patients safe

A short time later, when the opioid overdose crisis began to escalate, pharmacists again found themselves pulled in two directions. This time, the question was whether they should be both medical and legal gatekeepers.

When the U.S. first tried to crack down on unauthorized opioid use, many pharmacists felt ambivalent about tasks like identifying people who were misusing or selling medications. One pharmacist told me, “Although I’m in the business of patient safety, I’m not in the police business.”

Later, pharmacists began to see policing tasks as health care tasks. They reasoned that policing patients helped keep patients safe, and they embraced enforcement as a key component of their work.

Fast-forward to 2021. America was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to treat sick patients, though the FDA had not approved the medications for that purpose. Many pharmacists refused to fill those prescriptions, citing lack of scientific evidence and potential harm.

Legislators in Missouri, where I teach, responded by passing a bill that required pharmacists to dispense the two medications, no questions asked – though that rule was later struck down by a federal judge. Similar conflicts played out in Iowa and Ohio, among other states.

Again, the fight broke down along political lines, but in the opposite direction. Liberals tended to oppose the bills, portraying pharmacists as skilled professionals whose expertise is essential to prevent harm. Conservative supporters claimed that pharmacists should dispense whatever the doctor writes.

Professional power

Each of these controversies has focused on a specific legal, ethical or medical issue. By extension, though, they are also about what kinds of professional discretion pharmacists should be able to exercise.

When it comes to medication, doctors prescribe, nurses administer and pharmacists dispense. Before the 20th century, pharmacists diagnosed disease and also compounded drugs. That changed when physicians placed themselves at the top of the medical hierarchy.

When it comes to professional autonomy, states regulate health care, but they permit health care professions to regulate themselves: to educate, license and discipline their own workers through professional boards. In exchange, these boards must do so “in the public interest” – prioritizing public health, safety and welfare over professionals’ own interests.

Health care professionals, including pharmacists, must also follow ethical codes. The day they receive their iconic white coats, pharmacists vow to “consider the welfare of humanity and relief of suffering [their] primary concerns.” Pharmacists also commit to “respecting the autonomy and dignity of each patient,” which means that pharmacists partner with patients to make choices about their health.

Self-regulation has legally given pharmacists the right to act as “medical gatekeepers” – to use their professional expertise to keep patients safe. This role is critical, as patients whose lives have been saved by pharmacists catching errors can attest.

It has not, however, given them the right to be “moral gatekeepers” who put their personal beliefs above the patient’s. Pharmacists control medications because of professional commitments, not personal beliefs. The code of ethics describes the pharmacist-patient relationship as a “covenant” that creates moral obligations for the pharmacist – including helping “individuals achieve optimum benefit from their medications,” being “committed to their welfare” and maintaining their trust.

If pharmacists wish to regulate themselves, history makes clear they need to define what it means to act in the public interest and ensure that other pharmacists comply. If not, the state has proved more than willing to step in and do the job for them. They may not like the results.

Elizabeth Chiarello has received funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Conflict at the drugstore: When pharmacists’ and patients’ values collide – https://theconversation.com/conflict-at-the-drugstore-when-pharmacists-and-patients-values-collide-264844

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Vanessa Delgado, Professor of Sociology, Washington State University

The Trump administration is upending norms and policies across the American educational system. One of the many groups facing uncertainty are prospective and current students living in the country without legal authorization.

For those students, applying to and attending college has long been a complicated, patchwork process that varies greatly across states.

In August 2025, the Department of Justice sued Oklahoma for a state law that allowed Oklahoma students living in the country without legal permission to pay a lower tuition rate that is guaranteed to in-state residents.

The Department of Justice also sued Kentucky, Texas and Minnesota over the summer on the same grounds.

Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma have all announced they will no longer offer in-state tuition to students who are living in the U.S. illegally. Minnesota is currently challenging the Justice Department’s lawsuit.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Vanessa Delgado, a scholar of Latino families and their educational experiences, to understand the higher education pathways for students living in the U.S. without legal authorization – and how the Trump administration is affecting their options.

How large is the population of students who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization?

There are 408,000 undocumented students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities – that’s about 2% of the entire U.S. college population.

California and Texas have the greatest number, with about 21% of all undocumented college students living in California and 14% in Texas. Those numbers are likely to be an underestimate, as there are no official surveys that track this information.

We don’t have strong data on the high school graduation rates of college students who are not living in the U.S. legally. The best estimates suggest that about 5% to 10% of all undocumented high schoolers go off to college.

Research shows that legal battles over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, have contributed to a drop in college enrollment. DACA is a federal immigration policy that allows some immigrants who came to the U.S. as young children to receive temporary protection from deportation and to get work permits.

College graduation rates are shaped by a number of factors, including the state an immigrant student lives in and whether they can receive in-state tuition and state-based financial aid. Other important factors are whether there are undocumented student resource centers and supportive mentors on campus.

How is attending college different for students without legal authorization?

Undocumented high school students thinking about college may be unaware of their legal and financial options. Undocumented students frequently receive incorrect information about college options – and sometimes they do not want to disclose their immigration status to a school counselor.

Where an undocumented student lives determines whether they can afford to pay for college, or in some cases whether they can attend at all. Undocumented students cannot receive any federal student aid, regardless of where they live, because you need to be an American citizen to receive this aid. Financial help is critical for many students, including immigrants, as most students receive some financial aid to pay for college.

There are 22 states, as well as Washington, that allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. In addition, undocumented high schoolers are eligible for state-based financial aid in 14 states.

Conversely, 10 states, like Wisconsin and Oklahoma, have enacted laws to block undocumented students from receiving in-state tuition.

Can these students receive merit-based scholarships?

That depends. Some scholarship programs require a lawful immigration status. Some scholarships might require students to be eligible for Pell Grants, meaning they also need lawful immigration status. Other programs, like public colleges in California and Washington state, have merit-based scholarships that undocumented students can apply for. Several national private scholarships are also available for undocumented students.

Are there some cases where these students simply cannot legally attend college?

There are three states – Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina – where undocumented students cannot apply to most public universities. For these states, the board of regents prohibits admission for undocumented students.

In Washington state, undocumented students who are residents can apply for state-based financial aid. Other states, like California, provide similar forms of aid.

What are other practical questions prospective students need to consider?

First, there’s the cost of going to college. Undocumented students are much more likely than citizens to be living in poverty. And in general, college tuition is rising. If you do not have access to resources, such as in-state tuition and state-based financial aid, the cost will likely be a prohibitive factor.

Then there is the question of what comes after college. Generally, without a lawful immigration status, undocumented students struggle to find work. Some states, like California and Washington, have enacted policies to remove barriers for professional licenses, letting undocumented immigrants still pursue different career paths.

How is Trump changing the education landscape for immigrant families?

The Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement of immigration policy is prompting more undocumented students to consider whether they need to stay close to home, as many fear that they or their family members will be deported.

Many undocumented students face significant family obligations at home, as I find in my research. This can dissuade them from going far from home, or even from going to school at all.

I know students who are now contemplating taking a year of absence, or dropping out altogether. I also know students who cannot concentrate on school work, because they are anxious about whether their loved ones will be detained. Many also have younger siblings and feel the pressure of stepping into a guardian role.

Texas is an example of a place where undocumented students are particularly under stress. It was one of the first states to provide in-state tuition for undocumented students. In June 2025, the state rescinded the policy.

Now, undocumented college students in Texas need to pay out-of-state tuition costs, even if they have paid in-state so far. That roughly doubles the cost of annual tuition. Students and staff on the ground are scrambling to figure how to make sense of this abrupt policy shift. Similar rollbacks have happened in Florida and other states, and all of these measures are making it more challenging for undocumented students to consider pursing higher education.

Vanessa Delgado 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. A fragmented legal system and threat of deportation are pushing higher education out of reach for many undocumented students – https://theconversation.com/a-fragmented-legal-system-and-threat-of-deportation-are-pushing-higher-education-out-of-reach-for-many-undocumented-students-266324

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Alex Volonte, Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant in Journalism, University of Florida

In September 2025, podcaster Pablo Torre published an investigation alleging that the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers may have used a side deal to skirt the league’s strict salary cap rules. His reporting, aired on multiple episodes of “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” focused on star forward Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard, one of the NBA’s most sought-after free agents, signed a four-year, US$176 million contract renewal with the Clippers during the 2021-22 off-season – the maximum allowed under league rules at the time. But Torre reported that in early 2022, Leonard’s LLC, KL2 Aspire, signed a cash and equity deal amounting to roughly $50 million through a brand sponsorship with Aspiration, a now-bankrupt financial technology startup that marketed itself as a climate-friendly bank.

Torre highlighted how the sponsorship coincided with major investments in Aspiration by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and another team investor. The arrangement, Torre suggested, looked less like a conventional endorsement deal and more like a “no-show” side payment that could have helped the Clippers keep their star without technically violating the salary cap.

Leonard has denied that the partnership was improper, insisting he fulfilled his contractual obligations. The Clippers and Ballmer have also rejected claims of wrongdoing.

Torre’s reporting nevertheless had an immediate impact. Major outlets picked up the story, Aspiration’s bankruptcy filings drew renewed scrutiny, and the NBA announced it was investigating the matter.

At the University of Florida’s College of Journalism & Communications, part of my research involves unpacking the importance of decentralized networks of local outlets that cover stories from underrepresented areas of the country.

I see Torre’s work as a clear example of the growing need for this kind of bottom-up, citizen journalism – particularly given media industry trends.

An eroding fourth estate

Watchdog journalism is supposed to hold power to account.

This is sometimes referred to as the “fourth estate.” A term that dates back to the 17th century, it reflects the idea that an independent press is supposed to act as a fourth pillar of power, alongside the three traditional branches of modern democracies – legislative, executive and judicial.

Proudly independent from political or financial influence, fourth estate news media has traditionally demonstrated a public service commitment to exposing corruption, encouraging debate, highlighting issues that are important and forcing leaders to address those issues.

The need for watchdog journalism appears more urgent than ever.

In the Western world, with authoritarianism on the rise, the fourth estate is experiencing widespread threats. Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index found that global press freedom reached an all-time low in 2025. For the first time, it classified the situation as “difficult.”

Meanwhile, market forces and profit motives have weakened the media’s role in upholding democratic checks and balances. Fierce competition for clicks, eyeballs and ad revenue impacts the type of content and stories that commercial outlets tend to focus on.

There appears to be less and less of a financial incentive to put in the time, resources and effort required for deep investigative reporting. It’s just not worth the return on that investment for commercial outfits.

A full-court press

In the U.S., the Trump administration and media consolidations have further weakened the press’s ability to serve as a check on those in power.

Over the past year, two major TV networks — ABC and CBS — reached settlements for separate lawsuits brought forward by President Donald Trump tied to editorial choices on their broadcast programming. Needless to say, both decisions create significant precedents that could prove consequential for journalistic integrity and independence.

In July 2025, the GOP-led Congress stripped over $1 billion from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, dealing a blow to public nonprofit outlets NPR, PBS and their local affiliates.

More recently, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah lost her job after speaking out against gun violence on social media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

From a structural standpoint, the U.S. media ownership landscape has, for decades, been plagued by consolidation. Media channels have become merely one slice of the massive asset portfolios of the conglomerates that control them.

It’s probably fair to say that producing costly and burdensome watchdog journalism isn’t exactly a priority for busy executives at the top of these holding companies.

What about local media?

Independent local outlets are a dying breed, too.

Studies have shown that news deserts – areas with little or no local coverage – are multiplying across the U.S.

This has dire consequences for democratic governance: News deserts often correlate with lower civic engagement, reduced voter turnout and less accountability for business and political leaders.

What’s more, fewer local journalists means less scrutiny of local governments, which undermines transparency and enables corruption.

For these reasons, more readers seem to be getting their news from social media and podcasts. In fact, according to a new Pew Research Center report, 1 in 5 Americans get their news from TikTok alone. And in its 2025 Digital News Report, the Reuters Institute noted that “engagement with traditional media sources such as TV, print, and news websites continues to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows.”

With this in mind, the U.S. government’s latest framework for a deal for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the social media platform’s stateside operations to a consortium of American investors takes on even more significance. Many of these investors are allies of Trump. They’ll get to control the algorithm – meaning they’ll be able to influence the content that users see.

Bottom up

At the same time, social media has also allowed independent journalists such as Torre to find an audience.

Granted, with past journalistic stints at both Sports Illustrated and ESPN, Torre is not exactly a pure outsider. Yet he’s far from a household name, with fewer than 200,000 podcast subscribers.

Luckily, he’s by no means the only independent journalist serving as a citizen watchdog.

In January 2025, freelance journalist Liz Pelly published her book “Mood Machine,” which details her investigation into Spotify’s dubious financial practices. Through her research and reporting, she alleges that the music technology company conspired to suppress legitimate royalty payments to artists.

Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 News fame on YouTube runs one of the largest crowdfunded independent newsrooms in the world. His exclusive interview with Hunter Biden in July 2025 got him a type of access that established mainstream media couldn’t get.

In 2020, Canadian siblings Sukh Singh and Harleen Kaur founded GroundNews, an online platform providing news aggregation, curation and rigorous fact-checking. All Sides and Straight Arrow News are similar bottom-up projects designed to expose media bias and fight misinformation.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit media outlet ProPublica has published award-winning investigative journalism through a distributed network of local reporters. Their “Life of the Mother” series, which explored the deaths of mothers after abortion bans, earned them multiple awards while prompting policy changes at federal and state levels.

All have surfaced meaningful stories worth bringing to light. Historically, these types of stories were the purview of newspapers of record.

Today, underground sleuths might be among the last bulwarks to abuses of power.

The work isn’t easy. It certainly doesn’t pay well. But I think it’s important, and someone has to do it.

Alex Volonte 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. Watchdog journalism’s future may lie in the work of independent reporters like Pablo Torre – https://theconversation.com/watchdog-journalisms-future-may-lie-in-the-work-of-independent-reporters-like-pablo-torre-265839