Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Chris Meyers, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, George Washington University

Medical marijuana could soon be reclassified into a medical category that includes prescription drugs like Tylenol with codeine, ketamine and anabolic steroids.

That’s because in December 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reschedule marijuana to a less restricted category, continuing a process initiated by President Joe Biden in 2022.

Currently, marijuana is in the most restrictive class, Schedule I, the same category as street drugs like LSD, ecstasy and heroin.

For years, many researchers and medical experts have argued that its current classification is a hindrance to much-needed medical research that would answer many of the pressing questions about its potential for medicinal use.

In January 2026, Republican Senators Ted Budd, of North Carolina, and James Lankford, of Oklahoma, introduced an amendment to funding bills trying to block the rescheduling, claiming that it “sends the wrong message” and will lead to “increased risk of heart attack, stroke, psychotic disorders, addiction and hospitalization.”

As a philosopher and drug policy expert, I am more interested in what is the most reasonable marijuana policy. In other words, is rescheduling the right move?

Broadly speaking, there are three choices available for marijuana regulation. The U.S. could keep the drug in the highly restricted Schedule I category, move it to a less restrictive category or remove it from scheduling altogether, which would end the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws.

As of January 2026, cannabis is legal in 40 of 50 states for medical use and 24 states for recreational use. Rescheduling would only apply to medical use.

Let’s examine the arguments for each option:

The Controlled Substances Act

The Controlled Substances Act places each prohibited drug into one of five “schedules” based on proven medical use, addictive potential and safety.

Drugs classified as Schedule I – as marijuana has been since 1971, when the Controlled Substances Act was passed – cannot be legally used for medical use or research, though an exception for research can be made with special permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Schedule I drugs are believed to have a high potential for abuse, to be extremely addictive and to have “no currently accepted medical use.”

As a Schedule I drug, marijuana has been more tightly controlled than cocaine, methamphetamine, PCP and fentanyl, all of which belong to Schedule II.

The status quo option

Some policy analysts and anti-marijuana activists argue that marijuana should remain a Schedule 1 drug.

A common objection to rescheduling it is the assertion that 1 in 3 marijuana users develop an addiction to the drug, which stems from a large study called a meta-analysis.

A careful reading of that study reveals the flaws in its conclusions. The researchers found that about one-third of heavy users – meaning those who use marijuana weekly or daily – suffered from dependence. But when they looked at marijuana users more generally – meaning people who tried it at least once, the way addiction rates are normally measured – they found that only 13% of users develop a dependency on marijuana, which makes it less habit-forming than most recreational drugs, including alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, none of which are scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act.

Further, if the 1-in-3 figure were accurate, then marijuana would be more addictive than alcohol, crack cocaine and even heroin. This defies both common sense and well-established studies on the comparative risk of addiction.

Critics of rescheduling also deny that there is convincing evidence that marijuana or its compounds have any legitimate medical use. They cite research like a 2025 review paper that assessed 15 years of medical marijuana research and concluded that “evidence is insufficient for the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most medical indications.”

This claim is problematic, however, given that the Food and Drug Administration has already approved several medicines that are based on the same active compounds found in marijuana. These include the drugs Marinol and Syndros, which are used to treat AIDS-related anorexia and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Both of these contain delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the substance that is responsible for the marijuana high.

If the active ingredients of marijuana have legitimate medical use as established by the FDA, then it stands to reason that so must marijuana.

Option 2: Moving marijuana to schedule III

Moving marijuana to schedule III would make it legal at the federal level, but only for medical use. Recreational use would remain federally prohibited, even though it is legal in 24 states as of early 2026.

The most obvious benefit to rescheduling, noted above, is that it would make research on marijuana easier. The system of cannabinoid receptors through which marijuana confers its therapeutic and psychoactive effects is crucial for almost every aspect of human functioning. Thus, marijuana compounds could provide effective medicines for a wide variety of ailments.

Contrary to the 2015 review mentioned earlier, studies have shown that cannabis is effective for treating nausea and AIDS symptoms, chronic pain and some symptoms of multiple sclerosis, as well as many other conditions.

Rescheduling could also improve medical marijuana guidance. Under the current system, medical marijuana users are not provided with accurate, evidence-based guidance on how to use marijuana effectively. They must rely on “bud tenders,” dispensary employees with no medical training whose job is to sell product. If cannabis were moved to Schedule III, doctors would be trained to advise patients on its proper use. On the other hand, medical schools need not wait for rescheduling. Given that many people are already using medical marijuana, some medical experts have argued that medical schools should provide this training already.

Rescheduling, however, is not without complications. To comply with the law, medical marijuana programs would have to start requiring a doctor’s prescription, just like with all other scheduled substances. And it could be distributed only by licensed pharmacies. That might be a good thing, if marijuana is as dangerous and addictive as critics claim. But advocates of medical marijuana might be concerned that this would increase costs to the consumer and restrict access. That concern might be mitigated, however, if health insurance companies are required to cover the costs of medical marijuana once it is rescheduled.

In addition, it is unclear how rescheduling would affect state-level bans on medical marijuana. Generally speaking, states cannot legally restrict access to pharmaceuticals that have been approved by the FDA. However, this principle of federal preemption is currently being challenged by six states claiming they have the authority to restrict access to the abortion medication mifepristone.

Option 3: Unscheduling marijuana

The debate over rescheduling ignores a third option: that marijuana could be removed entirely from the Controlled Substances Act, giving states the authority to allow medical marijuana to be distributed without a prescription.

Some of the objections to rescheduling come from marijuana advocates. Given that marijuana is safer and less addictive than alcohol – which is not scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act – a case could be made for removing it entirely from the list of scheduled substances and allowing states to legalize it for recreational use, as many states have already.

In fact, many drugs as, or more powerful than, marijuana are also not scheduled. For example, most over-the-counter cough medicines contain dextromethorphan, a hallucinogenic dissociative, which in large doses causes effects similar to PCP.

Removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances would also decriminalize the drug. Over 200,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2024, over 90% of them for mere possession.

At the moment, the third option seems very unlikely. Although over 60% of Americans are in favor of full marijuana legalization, it lacks support in Congress.

Medical marijuana rescheduling looks likely to occur in 2026. After all, it has been proposed by both Biden and Trump. Whether it is the right move, only time will tell.

This article includes portions of a previous article originally published on Oct. 9, 2024.

Chris Meyers 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. Should medical marijuana be less stringently regulated? A drug policy expert explains what’s at stake – https://theconversation.com/should-medical-marijuana-be-less-stringently-regulated-a-drug-policy-expert-explains-whats-at-stake-272494

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Joanna Dreby, Professor of sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy who is an asylum seeker, in Minneapolis on Jan. 20, 2026, the photos quickly became a flash point in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement activity.

In one image, a man wearing a black uniform holds onto a gray and red Spider-Man backpack that the worried-looking young boy, wearing a blue bunny hat with floppy ears, has on his back.

Meanwhile, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol operations near schools have become increasingly common over the past year, spreading from Texas to Maine. While some parents in Minnesota have set up patrols around schools, there are families choosing to keep their kids home for days or weeks.

We are scholars of migration and children and childhood adversity.

Our research shows that exposure to severe immigration enforcement experiences during childhood carries long-term, significant consequences: These children are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety in young adulthood.

Why this matters

There is well-documented research showing how immigration enforcement has immediate negative effects on children and adults

Children whose immigrant parents are arrested, detained or deported often experience emotional and behavioral problems, including separation anxiety, school absenteeism, hyperactivity and other behavioral issues.

Yet, until recently, it has not been well understood how experiencing or being subjected to immigration enforcement actions affects children once they grow up to become adults.

That said, over three decades of research shows the clear links between traumatic childhood events and mental health problems in adulthood. Studies show, for example, that adults who experienced temporary separation from their parents as children are more likely to say they’ve experienced depression symptoms years later.

We decided to investigate whether a child being exposed to immigration enforcement actions – meaning the arrest of a parent, or detention of a close family member, for example – is associated with mental health problems among young adults who grew up in immigrant families.

How immigration enforcement unravels families

Our study first combined interviews and open-ended survey questions to define what it means to experience severe immigration enforcement during childhood.

We then examined the link between severe immigration enforcement actions and anxiety among 71 young adults – all U.S. citizens age 18 to 34 – who were raised in immigrant households in New York.

As children, all of these young adults witnessed or experienced the arrest, detention or deportation of an immigrant family member or a member of their communities. Three-quarters of the participants identified as Hispanic.

We analyzed our interviews to develop several criteria to determine what constitutes severe exposure to enforcement during childhood, considering factors like whether they witnessed a detention or arrest more than once, and how old they were when these experiences took place.

We found that approximately 26% of the survey participants – all of whom in this group were Hispanic, except one – had severe exposure to immigration enforcement actions during childhood. Not all of them had a parent who has been deported.

Some of these young people had relatives who had drawn-out cases in immigration court, or felt constant fear that their parents might be deported.

When we linked our interviews with survey data, our results were striking.

We found that young adults who experienced severe immigration enforcement actions as children were twice as likely to have anxiety, compared with young adults who did not have this experience when they were growing up.

Exposure to severe immigration enforcement actions as a child was not independently associated with depression as a young adult. But all the survey participants who said they were experiencing depression also reported anxiety symptoms – further evidence of a connection between severe immigration enforcement actions and anxiety among young people.

Lasting impact of today’s policies

Many legal experts and political observers say that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics in Minneapolis and in other cities are designed to intimidate and instill fear among civilians.

Children are not immune to these tactics, either as witnesses or as targets.

Federal immigration officers deployed tear gas, for example, on students at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis on Jan. 8. Experiences like this constitute a major adverse childhood event, exposing children and adolescents to significant trauma.

We believe that we can learn from decades of adverse childhood experiences research, which clearly shows the link between childhood adversity and physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood.

The enforcement tactics ICE is using in Minnesota and other places in the U.S. today are likely, our research suggests, going to harm the next generation of U.S. citizens and residents.

As trauma researchers have long known, our bodies keep score over a lifetime. The question facing policymakers is not whether these enforcement tactics will cause lasting harm – our research suggests they would – but what human costs we, as a nation, are willing to bear.

Joanna Dreby receives funding from Russell Sage Foundation

Eunju Lee receives funding from Russel Sage Foundation (PI Dreby).

– ref. There’s long-lasting, negative effects for children like Liam Ramos who are detained, or watch their parents be deported – https://theconversation.com/theres-long-lasting-negative-effects-for-children-like-liam-ramos-who-are-detained-or-watch-their-parents-be-deported-274271

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Laura Tedesco, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, Saint Louis University – Madrid

A series of shootings by federal immigration agents, including two deaths in Minneapolis, have galvanized intense local and national protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. Federal immigration agents killed Renee Nicole Good, 37 – a mother of three – and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, weeks apart in January 2026.

Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency on Jan. 20, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained thousands of people across the country, including U.S. citizens and legal residents. At least 11 people have been shot, including a Venezuelan migrant in Minneapolis on Jan. 14, 2026. Children and babies have been tear-gassed.

I am a political scientist who studies authoritarian regimes. I also lived through Argentina’s brutal military junta of the 1970s and 1980s. When I consider today’s ICE violence, I think of the state terrorism that tore Argentina apart – and how mothers became a potent force in resisting authoritarianism and ultimately restoring democracy.

Masked agents and the ‘Trump effect’

U.S. federal immigration enforcement actions began raising human rights concerns starting in April 2025, when masked federal agents in plain clothes began detaining international students.

Historically in the U.S., police and other official state security forces have used face coverings almost exclusively during undercover operations to protect agent safety and the integrity of ongoing investigations, according to federal law enforcement sources.

The global human rights group Amnesty International has begun using the phrase “the Trump effect” to describe masking and other administration actions that it believes violate global human rights standards.

Meanwhile, violence by ICE agents also runs counter to international law – as does police violence more broadly.

Several United Nations principles require that police action be guided at all times by legality, necessity, proportionality and nondiscrimination. Any use of force that does not comply with these principles violates international law.

Amnesty International’s policing guidance is based on these standards. It explains that police must attempt to use nonviolent means first, such as verbal commands, negotiation and warnings.

When force is necessary, officers must use “the least harmful means likely to be effective.” In such cases, proportionality requires that “the harm caused by the use of force may never outweigh the damage it seeks to prevent.”

Good’s and Pretti’s killings occurred in broad daylight. Video analysis suggests that Good was attempting to turn her vehicle away from the scene when an ICE agent shot her three times. Pretti had a holstered weapon, but witnesses and videos show he had been disarmed before a federal agent fatally shot him.

As nonimmigrant local community members, neither victim would be the apparent target of immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

Argentina’s dictatorship

In both its use of masks and its brazen disregard for proportionality, ICE evokes in me unsettling memories of all-powerful, authoritarian governments that exercise control over life and death.

In March 1976, the Argentine armed forces overthrew a weak and chaotic government – that of María Estela Martínez de Perón, widow of Juan Domingo Perón – claiming the need to restore order in a country engulfed in political violence. So began one of the darkest periods in contemporary Argentine history.

Between 1976 and 1983, approximately 30,000 people were forcibly “disappeared,” meaning secretly kidnapped, never to be seen again. The vast majority were young men and women involved in labor unions, political organizations or student movements with left-wing ideologies, including Catholic priests and nuns who embraced liberation theology, a movement within the church that interprets the gospel of Jesus Christ through the experiences of poor people and the oppressed.

In April 1977, roughly a year after young Argentines first began vanishing, 14 women gathered in the Plaza de Mayo, a central square in Buenos Aires that faces the presidential palace. They were searching for their sons and daughters, who had been detained by the police or the military.

Some of these arrests had taken place at night, in the homes where these young victims lived with their families. In those cases, the women – who came to be known as the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, or Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – knew their children had been taken by security forces. In other cases, their children had simply failed to return home. Nothing was known of their whereabouts. They had disappeared.

Even those who had been detained at home had disappeared, too, as their location remained unknown.

Later, the nation would learn that many of the regime’s victims were tortured, then flown in airplanes over the nearby River Plate and dropped into the water on so-called “death flights.” All this information was compiled in a 1984 report written during the first democratic government after military rule and published under the name “Nunca Mas”: Never again.

The Mothers didn’t know that yet. They wanted their children back – alive.

Demonize, deny, discredit

The dictatorship had imposed a state of siege prohibiting all forms of assembly. To technically evade this restriction, the Mothers walked in circles around the plaza, avoiding the concentration of people in any single location, demanding truth and justice.

The regime reacted by systematically attempting to discredit the grieving women. To weaken their moral authority, state-controlled media labeled them as emotionally unstable “mad women.” The were called Las Locas de Plaza de Mayo instead of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo.

Regime media also suggested the Mothers were political subversives with links to guerrilla groups and members of foreign organizations out to damage Argentina’s international reputation.

Officials accused the women of exaggerating or inventing kidnappings and sometimes mocked their ever-growing weekly marches. By attacking their credibility and dignity, the dictatorship sought to undermine public sympathy and maintain a climate of fear.

At first, this narrative worked. Early in the dictatorship, many Argentines viewed the Mothers with ambivalence, skepticism or even fear. Others, while privately sympathetic, avoided expressing support due to fear of repression and social consequences.

The government’s attacks were not only rhetorical. In 1977, three of the founding Mothers – Esther de Balestrino, Azucena Villaflor and Mary Ponce de Bianco – disappeared when a group of military personnel stormed the Church of the Holy Cross in Buenos Aires. Twelve other people were abducted. None have ever been found.

The Mothers received substantial support from abroad. International human rights organizations, foreign journalists and religious institutions all played a crucial role in legitimizing their claims and broadcasting their struggle to the world.

France, in particular, helped publicize the Mothers’ cause in Europe, which put diplomatic pressure on the Argentine regime. This international solidarity contributed significantly to breaking the dictatorship’s silence and exposing its crimes.

Over time, as evidence of systematic forced disappearances became undeniable, public perception of the Mothers gradually shifted in Argentina, too. The Mothers came to be seen as a brave force for moral resistance.

A democracy built in part by mothers

In 1982, the military dictatorship invaded the South Atlantic islands known in Argentina as the Malvinas, or Falklands. The land has been British since 1833, but Argentina’s generals claimed sovereignty. Argentina was quickly defeated, and the military government fell.

After democratic elections were held in October 1983, the Mothers continued their efforts to uncover the histories of their children and to find and bury their remains. Many also started working to locate their grandchildren who had been born in captivity and illegally adopted after their parents were disappeared.

Their dedication to recovering their loved ones exposed the full extent of the regime’s atrocities.

In 1983, President Raúl Alfonsín, who reestablished Argentine democracy, established the National Genetic Data Bank to identify kinship between the parents and children of the disappeared. Thousands of analyses were conducted on children suspected of being born in captivity and illegally adopted by military families.

More than 120 grandchildren have since been identified.

The Mothers and children of the disappeared have also played a fundamental role in convicting dozens of military officials for crimes against humanity. As direct witnesses to the long-term consequences of forced disappearance, they have repeatedly testified against military officials.

The Mothers’ activism, which continues today, has helped sustain public pressure in Argentina for accountability and to transform private trauma into collective political action.

The killings in Minneapolis inspired me to recount this story for a simple reason: The government can protect, condemn or kill. Argentine history shows that it matters how society reacts to state terrorism.

This story was produced in collaboration with Rewire News Group, a nonprofit news organization that covers reproductive health.

Laura Tedesco is an Amnesty International donor.

– ref. How government killings and kidnappings in Argentina drove mothers to resist and revolt − and eventually win – https://theconversation.com/how-government-killings-and-kidnappings-in-argentina-drove-mothers-to-resist-and-revolt-and-eventually-win-273440

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Susan A. Kaplan, Professor of Anthropology, Director of Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center, Bowdoin College

Amid the discussion between U.S. President Donald Trump and Danish and European leaders about who should own Greenland, the Inuit who live there and call it home aren’t getting much attention.

The Kalaallit (Inuit of West Greenland), the Tunumi (Inuit of East Greenland) and the Inughuit (Inuit of North Greenland) together represent nearly 90% of the population of Greenland, which totals about 57,000 people across 830,000 square miles (2.1 million square kilometers).

We are Arctic anthropologists who work in a museum focused on the Arctic and its people. One of the areas we study is a land whose inhabitants call it Kalaallit Nunaat, or land of the Kalaallit. Known in English as Greenland, it is an Indigenous nation whose relatively few people have been working for decades to reclaim their right to self-determination.

Arrivals from the west

For nearly 5,000 years, northwestern Greenland – including the area that is now the U.S. Space Force’s Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Force Base – was the island’s main entry point. A succession of Indigenous groups moved eastward from the Bering Strait region and settled in Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland.

Approximately 1,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Inuit living in Greenland today arrived in that area with sophisticated technologies that allowed them to thrive in a dynamic Arctic environment where minor mishaps can have serious consequences. They hunted animals using specialized technologies and tools, including kayaks, dog-drawn sleds, complex harpoons, and snow goggles made from wood or bone with slits cut into them. They dressed in highly engineered garments made from animal fur that kept them warm and dry in all conditions.

Their tools and clothing were imbued with symbolic meanings that reflected their worldview, in which humans and animals are interdependent. Inughuit families who live in the region today continue to hunt and fish, while navigating a warming climate.

Arrivals from the east

At Qassiarsuk in south Greenland, around the time Inuit arrived in the north, Erik the Red established the first Norse farm, Brattahlíð, in 986, and sent word back to Iceland to encourage others to join him, as described in an online exhibit at the Greenland National Museum. Numerous Norse families followed and established pastoral farms in the region.

As Inuit expanded southward, they encountered the Norse farmers. Inuit and Norse traded, but relations were sometimes tense: Inuit oral histories and Norse sagas describe some violent interactions. The two groups maintained distinctly different approaches to living on the land that rims Greenland’s massive ice sheet. The Norse were very place-based, while the Inuit moved seasonally, hunting around islands, bays and fjords.

As the Little Ice Age set in early in the 14th century, and temperatures dropped in the Northern Hemisphere, the Norse were not equipped to adjust to the changing conditions. Their colonies faltered and by 1500 had disappeared. By contrast, the mobile Inuit took a more flexible approach and hunted both land and marine mammals according to their availability. They continued living in the region without much change to their lifestyle.

A center of activity

In Nuuk, the modern capital of Greenland, an imposing and controversial statue of missionary Hans Egede commemorates his arrival in 1721 to establish a Lutheran mission in a place he called Godthåb.

In 1776, as trade became more important, the Danish government established the Royal Greenland Trading Department, a trading monopoly that administered the communities on the west coast of Greenland as a closed colony for the next 150 years.

By the 19th century some Kalaallit families who lived in Nuuk/Godthåb had formed an educated, urban class of ministers, educators, artists and writers, although Danish colonists continued to rule.

Meanwhile, Kalaallit families in small coastal communities continued to engage in traditional economic and social activities, based on respect of animals and sharing of resources.

On the more remote east coast and in the far north, colonization took root more slowly, leaving explorers such as American Robert Peary and traders such as Danish-Greenlandic Knud Rasmussen a free hand to employ and trade with local people.

The U.S. formally recognized Denmark’s claim to the island in 1916 when the Americans purchased the Danish West Indies, which are now the U.S. Virgin Islands. And in 1921, Denmark declared sovereignty over the whole of Greenland, a claim upheld in 1933 by the Permanent Court of International Justice. But Greenlanders were not consulted about these decisions.

The world arrives

World War II brought the outside world to Greenland’s door. With Denmark under Nazi control, the U.S. took responsibility for protecting the strategically important island of Greenland and built military bases on both the east and west coasts. The U.S. made efforts to keep military personnel and Kalaallit apart but were not entirely successful, and some visiting and trading went on. Radios and broadcast news also spread, and Kalaallit began to gain a sense of the world beyond their borders.

The Cold War brought more changes, including the forced relocation of 27 Inughuit families living near the newly constructed U.S. Air Force base at Thule to Qaanaaq, where they lived in tents until small wooden homes were built.

In 1953, Denmark revised parts of its constitution, including changing the status of Greenland from a colony to one of the nation’s counties, thereby making all Kalaallit residents of Greenland also full-fledged citizens of Denmark. For the first time, Kalaallit had elected representatives in the Danish parliament.

Denmark also increased assimilation efforts, promoting the Danish language and culture at the expense of Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language. Among other projects, the Danish authorities sent Greenlandic children to residential schools in Denmark.

In Nuuk in the 1970s, a new generation of young Kalaallit politicians emerged, eager to protect and promote the use of Kalaallisut and gain greater control over Greenland’s affairs. The rock band Sumé, singing protest songs in Kalaallisut, contributed to the political awakening.

In a 1979 Greenland-wide referendum, a substantial majority of Kalaallit voters opted for what was called “home rule” within the Danish Kingdom. That meant a parliament of elected Kalaallit representatives handled internal affairs, such as education and social welfare, while Denmark retained control of foreign affairs and mineral rights.

However, the push for full independence from Denmark continued: In 2009, home rule was replaced by a policy of self-government, which outlines a clear path to independence from Denmark, based on negotiations following a potential future referendum vote by Greenlanders. Self-government also allows Greenland to assert and benefit from control over its mineral resources, but not to manage foreign affairs.

Today, Nuuk is a busy, vibrant, modern city. Life is quieter in smaller settlements, where hunting and fishing are still a way of life. While contemporary Greenland encompasses this range of lifestyles, Kalaallit are unified in their desire for self-determination. Greenland’s leaders have delivered this message clearly to the public and to the White House directly.

Susan A. Kaplan has received funding from NSF, NEH, IMLS, SSHRC and private foundations to pursue anthropological and archaeological research in Nunatsiavut, NL, Canada; and offer Arctic-focused outreach programs, museum exhibits and conferences.

Genevieve LeMoine receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs, the National Geographic Society, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has conducted fieldwork in Avannaata Kommunia, Kalaallit Nunaat in collaboration with Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu/Greenland National Musuem and Archives and the University of California, Davis.

– ref. Greenland’s Inuit have spent decades fighting for self-determination – https://theconversation.com/greenlands-inuit-have-spent-decades-fighting-for-self-determination-274268

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Annie Selak, Director, Women’s Center, Georgetown University

The first publicly recognized Black priest in the United States, Augustus Tolton, may not be a household name. Yet I believe his story – from being born enslaved to becoming a college valedictorian – deserves to be a staple of Black History Month. “Good Father Gus” is now a candidate for sainthood.

My forthcoming book, “The Wounded Church,” examines ways that the Catholic Church has excluded people during different chapters of its history, from women to African American people. One chapter of history that many Americans may not know about was how the U.S. church barred Black men from becoming priests – a chapter that ended with Tolton’s ordination in the late 19th century.

Slavery to seminary

Tolton was born on April 1, 1854 in Missouri, where he and his family were enslaved. He was baptized as Catholic as an infant. He escaped slavery in 1863 with his mother and siblings, eventually settling together in Quincy, Illinois.

Life in Quincy was far from a dream come true. He attempted to attend an integrated public school and a Catholic parish school, but was bullied and faced discrimination, causing him to leave. Tolton worked at a tobacco factory – the first of several manual jobs he held as a young man, while also establishing a Sunday school for Black Catholics.

Eventually, he encountered the Rev. Peter McGirr, an Irish immigrant priest who allowed the boy to attend St. Peter’s, a local parish school for white Catholics, when the tobacco factory where Tolton was employed was closed in the winter. McGirr’s decision was controversial, but Tolton pushed on and excelled. He began private tutoring by priests at Saint Francis Solanus College, now Quincy University. In 1880, he graduated as the valedictorian.

By then, it was clear that Tolton was extraordinary – even when working at a soda bottling plant, for example, he had learned German, Latin and Greek. He wanted to become a priest, yet was rejected by U.S. seminaries.

The Vatican allowed Black men to be ordained, but church hierarchy in the U.S. would not admit Black men to seminaries. Their exclusion was driven by white priests “internally beholden to the racist doctrines of the day,” as Nate Tinner-Williams, co-founder and editor of the Black Catholic Messenger, wrote in a 2021 article. Tolton applied to the Mill Hill Missionaries in London, a group that was devoted to serving Black Catholics, and was rejected by them as well.

At the time, the only Black men who were Catholic priests in the U.S. were biracial Americans who passed as white and did not openly identify themselves as Black. The most famous of these was Patrick Healy, who served as president of Georgetown University from 1873-82. Healy and his brothers were ordained in Europe.

With no route to ordination in his home country, Tolton traveled to Rome to complete his seminary education. He was ordained on Easter Saturday in 1886 and celebrated his first Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica. He planned on going somewhere in Africa as a missionary, but was instead sent to the United States. As Tolton later recalled, “It was said that I would be the only priest of my race in America and would not likely succeed.”

‘Good Father Gus’

After ordination, Tolton returned to his home country and celebrated Masses in New York and New Jersey before settling in in his hometown of Quincy. The Masses were like a triumphant return for Tolton: filled to capacity, and drawing in people from surrounding areas to celebrate the country’s first Mass presided over by a Black priest.

“Good Father Gus” was popular, and known for being a “fluent and graceful talker” with “a singing voice of exceptional sweetness.” Yet his ministry encountered backlash – though not from parishioners. He encountered jealousy from other ministers. Tolton told James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, that Black Protestant ministers were nervous that their members would leave and become Catholic. White Catholic priests “rejoiced at my arrival,” Tolton wrote, but “now they wish I were away because too many white people come down to my church from other parishes.”

Tolton’s most influential chapter began when he moved to Chicago in 1889. He was sent as a “missionary” to the Black community in Chicago, with the hope of establishing a Black Catholic church. He served the parish of St. Monica’s, described at the time as “probably the only Catholic church in the West that has been built by colored members of that faith for their own use.”

This success took a toll. Tolton had periods of sickness and took a temporary leave of absence from St. Monica’s in 1895. It is unclear whether he suffered from mental illness or physical illness. During a heat wave, he collapsed on the street. He died the next day, on July 8, 1897, at age 43.

Road to sainthood

Tolton’s legacy continues beyond his life and early death. As the first Black priest in the U.S., “whom all knew and recognized as Black,” according to Cyprian Davis, a Black Catholic monk and historian of the church, Tolton opened the doors to other Black men being ordained.

Ten years after Tolton applied to join the Mill Hill Missionaries, the order accepted a Black man for seminary and priesthood: Charles Randolph Uncles. John Henry Dorsey received the Holy Orders in 1902, becoming the second Black man ordained in the U.S. and the country’s fifth Black priest.

“Good Father Gus” is now on the path toward sainthood. In 2019, Pope Francis advanced Tolton’s cause for sainthood, making his name officially “The Venerable Father Augustus Tolton.” The next steps, beatification and canonization, require evidence of miracles, which the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Vatican are evaluating.

Today, some schools and programs carry Tolton’s name, introducing him to a new generation. But while church law and practice no longer prohibit the ordination of Black men to the priesthood, full equity in church ministry remains elusive.

Black women were long excluded from joining religious orders, and they started their own congregations in the mid-19th century. A Black man did not become a U.S. cardinal until 2020, when Wilton Gregory was named cardinal of Washington, D.C.

During Black History Month, I believe Tolton’s life and legacy offer a vital example of how one man overcame obstacles to pursue priesthood, encountering success and loneliness along the way.

Annie Selak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The pioneering path of Augustus Tolton, the first Black Catholic priest in the US – born into slavery, he’s now a candidate for sainthood – https://theconversation.com/the-pioneering-path-of-augustus-tolton-the-first-black-catholic-priest-in-the-us-born-into-slavery-hes-now-a-candidate-for-sainthood-269257

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Atom Sarkar, Professor of Neurosurgery, Drexel University

Athletic footwear has entered a new era of ambition. No longer content to promise just comfort or performance, Nike claims its shoes can activate the brain, heighten sensory awareness and even improve concentration by stimulating the bottom of your feet.

“By studying perception, attention and sensory feedback, we’re tapping into the brain-body connection in new ways,” said Nike’s chief science officer, Matthew Nurse, in the company’s press release for the shoes. “It’s not just about running faster — it’s about feeling more present, focused and resilient.”

Other brands like Naboso sell “neuro-insoles,” socks and other sensory-based footwear to stimulate the nervous system.

It’s a compelling idea: The feet are rich in sensory receptors, so could stimulating them really sharpen the mind?

As a neurosurgeon who studies the brain, I’ve found that neuroscience suggests the reality is more complicated – and far less dramatic – than the marketing implies.

Close links between feet and brain

The soles of the feet contain thousands of mechanoreceptors that detect pressure, vibration, texture and movement.

Signals from these receptors travel through peripheral nerves to the spinal cord and up to an area of the brain called the somatosensory cortex, which maintains a map of the body. The feet occupy a meaningful portion of this map, reflecting their importance in balance, posture and movement.

Footwear also affects proprioception – the brain’s sense of where the body is in space – which relies on input from muscles, joints and tendons. Because posture and movement are tightly linked to attention and arousal, changes in sensory feedback from the feet can influence how stable, alert or grounded a person feels.

This is why neurologists and physical therapists pay close attention to footwear in patients with balance disorders, neuropathy or gait problems. Changing sensory input can alter how people move.

But influencing movement is not the same thing as enhancing cognition.

Minimalist shoes and sensory awareness

Minimalist shoes, with thinner soles and greater flexibility, allow more information about touch and body position to reach the brain compared with heavily cushioned footwear. In laboratory studies, reduced cushioning can increase a wearer’s awareness of where their foot is placed and when it’s touching the ground, sometimes improving their balance or the steadiness of their gait.

However, more sensation is not automatically better. The brain constantly filters sensory input, prioritizing what is useful and suppressing what is distracting. For people unaccustomed to minimalist shoes, the sudden increase in sensory feedback may increase cognitive load – drawing attention toward the feet rather than freeing mental resources for focus or performance.

Sensory stimulation can heighten awareness, but there is a threshold beyond which it becomes noise.

Can shoes improve concentration?

Whether sensory footwear can improve concentration is where neuroscience becomes especially skeptical.

Sensory input from the feet activates somatosensory regions of the brain. But brain activation alone does not equal cognitive enhancement. Focus, attention and executive function depend on distributed networks involving various other areas of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe and the thalamus. They also rely on hormones that modulate the nervous system, such as dopamine and norepinephrine.

There is little evidence that passive underfoot stimulation – textured soles, novel foam geometries or subtle mechanical features – meaningfully improves concentration in healthy adults. Some studies suggest that mild sensory input may increase alertness in specific populations – such as older adults training to improve their balance or people in rehabilitation for sensory loss – but these effects are modest and highly dependent on context.

Put simply, feeling more sensory input does not mean the brain’s attention systems are working better.

Belief, expectation and embodied experience

While shoes may not directly affect your cognition, that does not mean the mental effects people report are imaginary.

Belief and expectation still play a powerful role in medicine. Placebo effects and their influence on perception, motivation and performance are well documented in neuroscience. If someone believes a shoe improves focus or performance, that belief alone can change perception and behavior – sometimes enough to produce measurable effects.

There is also growing interest in embodied cognition, the idea that bodily states influence mental processes. Posture, movement and physical stability can shape mood, confidence and perceived mental clarity. Footwear that alters how someone stands or moves may indirectly influence how focused they feel, even if it does not directly enhance cognition.

In the end, believing a product gives you an advantage may be the most powerful effect it has.

Where science and marketing diverge

The problem is not whether footwear influences the nervous system – it does – but imprecision. When companies claim their shoes are “mind-altering,” they often blur the distinction between sensory modulation and cognitive enhancement.

Neuroscience supports the idea that shoes can change sensory input, posture and movement. It does not support claims that footwear can reliably improve concentration or attention for the general population. If shoes truly produced strong cognitive changes, those effects would be robust, measurable and reproducible. So far, they are not.

Shoes can change how we feel in our bodies, how you move through space and how aware you are of your physical environment. Those changes may influence confidence, comfort and perception – all of which matter to experience.

But the most meaningful “mind-altering” effects a person can experience through physical fitness still come from sustained movement, training, sleep and attention – not from sensation alone. Footwear may shape how the journey feels, but it is unlikely to rewire the destination.

Atom Sarkar 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. Can shoes alter your mind? What neuroscience says about foot sensation and focus – https://theconversation.com/can-shoes-alter-your-mind-what-neuroscience-says-about-foot-sensation-and-focus-273759

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michelle L.D. Hanlon, Professor of Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi

When Apollo 13 looped around the Moon in April 1970, more than 40 million people around the world watched the United States recover from a potential catastrophe. An oxygen tank explosion turned a planned landing into an urgent exercise in problem-solving, and the three astronauts on board used the Moon’s gravity to sling themselves safely home. It was a moment of extraordinary human drama, and a revealing geopolitical one.

The Cold War space race was a two-player contest. The Soviet Union and the United States operated in parallel, rarely cooperating, but clearly measuring themselves against one another. By 1970, the United States had already landed on the Moon, and competition centered on demonstrating technological capability, political and economic superiority and national prestige. As Apollo 13 showed, even missions that did not go as planned could reinforce a country’s leadership if they were managed effectively.

More than half a century later, NASA’s Artemis II mission will send humans around the Moon again in early 2026, this time deliberately. But the strategy going into Artemis II looks very different from that of 1970. The United States is no longer competing against a single rival in a largely symbolic race.

As a professor of air and space law, I research questions of governance and conflict avoidance beyond Earth. From a space law perspective, sustained human activity on the Moon and beyond depends on shared expectations about safety and responsible behavior. In practice, the countries that show up, operate repeatedly and demonstrate how activity on the lunar surface and in outer space can be carried out over time shape these expectations.

Artemis II matters not as nostalgia or merely a technical test flight. It is a strategic signal that the United States intends to compete in a different kind of Moon race, one defined less by singular achievements and more by sustained presence, partnerships and the ability to shape how activity on the Moon is conducted.

From a 2-player race to a crowded field

Today, more countries are competing to land on the Moon than ever before, with China emerging as a pacing competitor. While national prestige remains a factor, the stakes now extend well beyond flags and firsts.

Governments remain central actors in the race to the Moon, but they no longer operate alone. Commercial companies design and operate spacecraft, and international partnerships shape missions from the start.

China, in particular, has developed a lunar program that is deliberate, well-resourced and focused on establishing a long-term presence, including plans for a research station. Its robotic missions have landed on the Moon’s far side and returned samples to Earth, and Beijing has announced plans for a crewed landing by 2030. Together, these steps reflect a program built on incremental capability rather than symbolic milestones.

Why Artemis II matters without landing

Artemis II, scheduled to launch in February 2026, will not land on the Moon. Its four-person crew will loop around the Moon’s far side, test life-support and navigation systems, and return to Earth. This mission may appear modest. Strategically, however, crewed missions carry a different weight than robotic missions.

Sending people beyond low Earth orbit requires sustained political commitment to spaceflight, funding stability and systems reliable enough that sovereign and commercial partners can align their own plans around them.

Artemis II also serves as a bridge to Artemis III, the mission where NASA plans to land astronauts near the Moon’s south pole, currently targeted for 2028. A credible, near-term human return signals that the U.S. is moving beyond experimentation and toward a sustained presence.

2 different models for going back to the Moon

The contrast between U.S. and Chinese lunar strategies is increasingly clear.

China’s program is centrally directed and tightly controlled by the state. Its partnerships are selective, and it has released few details about how activities on the Moon would be coordinated with other countries or commercial actors.

The U.S. approach, by contrast, is intentionally open. The Artemis program is designed so partners, both other countries and companies, can operate within a shared framework for exploration, resource use and surface activity.

This openness reflects a strategic choice. Coalitions among countries and companies expand their capabilities and shape expectations about how activities such as landing, operating surface equipment and using local resources are conducted.

When vague rules start to matter

International space law already contains a framework relevant to this emerging competition. Article IX of the 1967 outer space treaty requires countries to conduct their activities with “due regard” for the interests of others and to avoid harmful interference. In simple terms, this means countries are expected to avoid actions that would disrupt or impede the activities of others.

For decades, this obligation remained largely theoretical. On Earth, however, similarly open-ended rules, particularly in maritime contexts, created international conflicts as traffic on shipping lanes, resource extraction and military activity increased. Disputes intensified as some states asserted claims that extended beyond what international law recognized.

The Moon is now approaching a comparable phase.

As more actors converge on resource-rich regions, particularly near the lunar south pole, due regard becomes an immediate operational question rather than a theoretical future issue. How it is interpreted – whether it means simply staying out of each other’s way or actively coordinating activities – will shape who can operate where, and under what conditions.

Washington is naming the race − without panic

During his second Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was asked directly about competition with China in lunar exploration. He emphasized the importance of keeping U.S. space efforts on track over time, linking the success of the Artemis program to long-term American leadership in space.

A similar perspective appears in a recent U.S. government assessment, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2025 annual report to Congress. Chapter 7 addresses space as a domain of strategic competition, highlighting China’s growing capabilities. The report frames human spaceflight and deep-space infrastructure – including spacecraft, lunar bases and supporting technologies – as part of broader strategic efforts. It emphasizes growing a human space program over time, rather than changing course in response to individual setbacks or the accomplishments of other countries.

Recent U.S. policy reflects this emphasis on continuity. A new executive order affirms federal support for sustained lunar operations, as well as commercial participation and coordination across agencies. Rather than treating the Moon as a short-term challenge, the order anticipates long-term activity where clear rules, partnerships and predictability matter.

Artemis II aligns with this posture as one step in the U.S.’s plans for sustained activity on the Moon.

A different kind of test

As Artemis II heads toward the Moon, China will also continue to advance its lunar ambitions, and competition will shape the pace and manner of activity around the Moon. But competition alone does not determine leadership. In my view, leadership emerges when a country demonstrates that its approach reduces uncertainty, supports cooperation and translates ambition into a set of stable operating practices.

Artemis II will not settle the future of the Moon. It does, however, illustrate the American model of space activity built on coalitions, transparency and shared expectations. If sustained, that model could influence how the next era of lunar, and eventually Martian, exploration unfolds.

Michelle L.D. Hanlon is affiliated with For All Moonkind, Inc. a non-profit organization focused on protecting human cultural heritage in outer space.

– ref. NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon shows how US space strategy has changed since Apollo – and contrasts with China’s closed program – https://theconversation.com/nasas-artemis-ii-crewed-mission-to-the-moon-shows-how-us-space-strategy-has-changed-since-apollo-and-contrasts-with-chinas-closed-program-270245

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin, Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs, Boise State University

In Minneapolis, two recent fatal encounters with federal immigration agents have produced not only grief and anger, but an unusually clear fight over what is real.

In the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s killing on Jan. 24, 2026, federal officials claimed the Border Patrol officers who fired weapons at least 10 times acted in self-defense.

But independent media analyses showed the victim holding a phone, not a gun, throughout the confrontation. Conflicting reports about the earlier death of Renée Good have similarly intensified calls for independent review and transparency. Minnesota state and local officials have described clashes with federal agencies over access to evidence and investigative authority.

That pattern matters because in fast-moving crises, early official statements often become the scaffolding on which public judgment is built. Sometimes those statements turn out to be accurate. But sometimes they do not.

When the public repeatedly experiences the same sequence – confident claims, partial disclosures, shifting explanations, delayed evidence, lies – the damage can outlast any single incident.

It teaches people that “the facts” are simply one more instrument of power, distributed strategically. And once that lesson sinks in, even truthful statements arrive under suspicion.

And when government stories keep changing, democracy pays the price.

Lying in politics

This is not a novel problem. During the U.S. Civil War, for example, President Abraham Lincoln handled hostile press coverage with a blunt mix of repression and restraint. His administration shut down hundreds of newspapers, arrested editors and censored telegraph lines, even as Lincoln himself often absorbed vicious, personal ridicule.

The Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s brought similar disingenuous attempts by the Reagan administration to manage public perception, as did misleading presidential claims about weapons of mass destruction in the 2003 leadup to the Iraq War.

During the Vietnam era, the gap between what officials said in public and what they knew in private was especially stark.

Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations repeatedly insisted the war was turning a corner and that victory was near. However, internal assessments described a grinding stalemate.

Those contradictions came to light in 1971 when The New York Times and The Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, a classified Defense Department history of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam. The Nixon administration fiercely opposed the document’s public release.

Several months later, political philosopher Hannah Arendt published an essay in the New York Review of Books called “Lying in Politics”. It was also reprinted in a collection of essays titled “Crises of the Republic.”

Arendt, a Jewish refugee who fled Germany in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution and the very real risk of deportation to a concentration camp, argued that when governments try to control reality rather than report it, the public stops believing and becomes cynical. People “lose their bearings in the world,” she wrote.

‘Nobody believes anything any longer’

Arendt first articulated this argument in 1951 with the publication of “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” in which she examined Nazism and Stalinism. She further refined it in her reporting for The New Yorker on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a major coordinator of the Holocaust.

Arendt did not wonder why officials lie. Instead, she worried about what happens to a public when political life trains citizens to stop insisting on a shared, factual world.

Arendt saw the Pentagon Papers as more than a Vietnam story. They were evidence of a broader shift toward what she called “image-making” – a style of governance in which managing the audience becomes at least as important as following the law. When politics becomes performance, the factual record is not a constraint. It is a prop that can be manipulated.

The greatest danger of organized, official lying, Arendt warned, is not that people will believe something that is false. It is that repeated, strategic distortions make it impossible for citizens to orient themselves in reality.

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie,” she wrote, “but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world … [gets] destroyed.”

She sharpened the point further in a line that feels especially poignant in today’s fragmented, rapid and adversarial information environment:

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,” she wrote. “A lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history … depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge.”

When officials lie time and again, the point isn’t that a single lie becomes accepted truth, but that the story keeps shifting until people don’t know what to trust. And when this happens, citizens cannot deliberate, approve or dissent coherently, because a shared world no longer exists.

Maintaining legitimacy

Arendt helps clarify what Minneapolis is showing us, and why the current federal government posture matters beyond one city.

Immigration raids are high-conflict operations by design. They happen quickly, often without public visibility, and they ask targeted communities to accept a heavy federal presence as legitimate. When killings occur in that context, truth and transparency are essential. They protect the government’s legitimacy with the public.

Reporting on the Pretti case shows why. Even as federal government leaders issued definitive claims about the victim’s allegedly threatening behavior – they said Pretti approached agents while pointing a gun – video evidence contradicted that official account.

The point isn’t that every disputed detail in a fast-moving, complicated event causes public harm. It’s that when officials make claims that appear plainly inconsistent with readily available evidence – as in the initial accounts of what happened with Pretti – that mismatch is itself damaging to public trust.

Distorted declarations paired with delayed disclosure, selective evidence or interagency resistance to outside investigations nudge the public toward a conclusion that official accounts are a strategy for controlling the story, and not a description of reality.

Truth is a public good

Politics is not a seminar in absolute clarity, and competing claims are always part of the process. Democracies can survive spin, public relations and even occasional falsehoods.

But Arendt’s observations show that it is the normalization of blatant dishonesty and systematic withholding that threatens democracy. Those practices corrode the factual ground on which democratic consent is built.

The U.S. Constitution assumes a people capable of what Arendt called judgment – citizens who can weigh evidence, assign responsibility and act through law and politics.

If people are taught that “truth” is always contingent and always tactical, the harm goes beyond misinformation. A confused, distrustful public is easier to manage and harder to mobilize into meaningful democratic participation. It becomes less able to act, because action requires a shared world in which decisions can be understood, debated and contested.

The Minneapolis shootings are not only an argument about use of force. They are a test of whether public institutions will treat facts and truth as a public good – something owed to the community precisely when tensions are highest. If democratic life depends on a social contract among the governed and those governing, that contract cannot be sustained on shifting sand. It requires enough shared reality to support disagreement.

When officials reshape the facts, the damage isn’t only to the record. The damage is to the basic belief that a democratic public can know what its government has done.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin 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. Repeated government lying, warned Hannah Arendt, makes it impossible for citizens to think and to judge – https://theconversation.com/repeated-government-lying-warned-hannah-arendt-makes-it-impossible-for-citizens-to-think-and-to-judge-274340

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Steven R. Fassnacht, Professor of Snow Hydrology, Colorado State University

Winter Storm Fern brought Colorado’s mountain towns a bit of what they’ve spent weeks hoping for.

It snowed 23 inches (58 centimeters) at the Crested Butte ski resort over the weekend of Jan. 24-25, 2026. Aspen Snowmass got 13 inches (33 cm).

It was a welcome change in Colorado, where the ski season is off to a slow start. By Thanksgiving 2025, Colorado had only about 45% of the average snowpack it usually does at that time of year. Thanksgiving weekend is when many western ski resorts, such as Steamboat and Vail, typically open for the season.

By January 2026, the snowpack had increased only slightly to 57% of average. About half of the runs were open at central Colorado resorts in late January.

On top of a dry fall, Colorado has been unseasonably warm. Denver’s average air temperature for December 2025 was 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal.

This phenomenon is not entirely new. Over the past four decades, Colorado has seen a decline in November snowfall, which is a problem for developing the snowpack base for ski runs. There has also been a decline in March snowpack, which can reduce skier numbers during spring break, when many families and college-age skiers typically flock to the mountains.

In spite of the welcome snowfall, the forecast for the rest of the season, which runs through April, doesn’t look good. It’s expected to continue to be warmer than average across the Colorado mountains.

The warm temperatures and lack of snow in Colorado are a problem for skiers and ski resorts. This has translated into a growing economic impact on the state’s mountain communities.

We are a snow hydrologist and a historian of the ski industry. We’re concerned about how this year’s continuing low snowfall will affect Colorado’s US$5 billion ski industry, the state’s environment and water resources across the western U.S.

Creating snow

The ski industry relies on natural snow falling from the sky. Natural snowfall can be supplemented by resorts making their own snow, often in a race to be the first ski area to open. This year, Keystone opened first after beginning to make snow before Halloween.

Ski resorts use snow guns that use high-pressure air to blow fine water particles that freeze and form snow. But to make snow, the wet-bulb temperature needs to be colder than 28 F (minus 2 C). The wet bulb temperature is a combination of air temperature, humidity and air pressure.

Snowmaking covers only a fraction of any ski resort in Colorado. Even the most extensive snowmaking resorts like Keystone are only able to cover 40% of their runs with humanmade snow. Other resorts can cover less than 10%. Snowmaking in Colorado provides the base for the ski season to start, but it can’t replace a season with no snow.

By comparison, ski areas in other states, such as Arizona’s Snowbowl, rely on snowmaking throughout the winter. Snowmaking can cover most of a ski resort in the eastern U.S., where resorts tend to be smaller than ones in the West.

Snowmaking has environmental costs. On average, snowmaking accounts for 67% of a ski resort’s electricity costs and consumes billions of gallons of water.

Snow is made using water taken from streams during low-flow condition, or times when less water is available. The water is essentially stored on the ski slope, with about 80% flowing back into the streams when it melts.

Due to water rights legislation unique to the western U.S., a ski resort cannot easily use more water to make more snow without going through an extensive and often expensive legal process.

Regardless of how much snow can be made, Colorado’s ski areas mostly rely on natural snowfall.

History of snowmaking

This year is far from the first time Colorado’s ski industry has struggled with a lack of snow. Many areas in the state did not see snow during the winter of 1976-77 until after the December holidays. The lack of snowfall caused skier numbers to drop a staggering 38% from the previous season.

That dry season convinced the ski industry to take matters into its own hands. In the summer of 1976, Winter Park Ski Area made a $1.2 million investment in snowmaking, which saved the following season. Other larger ski resorts followed suit and invested heavily in the technology over the following five years.

Over the past decade, Vail Resorts, owner of 42 ski resorts worldwide, has invested more than $100 million in snowmaking to compensate for marginal snow years.

These investments reflect a broader rivalry within the industry as resorts compete for a limited number of skiers. By the end of the 1990s, snowmaking was understood as essential for ski resorts across the country.

What’s next

Low snow years are not just a problem for skiing. Colorado has a semi-arid climate, so water stored in the snowpack is a crucial water resource. In Colorado, up to 80% of the water comes from snow, so below-average snowfall usually means there will be a drought during the summer months that follow. Dry winters also lead to more wildfires.

Snowpack also affects summer tourism activities in Colorado that rely on water from snowmelt, such as whitewater rafting, whitewater parks, fishing and related river activities.

Coloradans may hope for snow to change the course of this winter. It’s happened before, like with the March 2003 Colorado blizzard, when 3 feet (1 meter) of snow fell in a day. Or in the winter of 2010-11, which started out drier than average and went on to be the wettest year on record.

The ski industry has tried to insulate itself from bad snow years through season pass sales and diversifying entertainment options. Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company require skiers and snowboarders to buy their Epic and Ikon season passes by October or spend upward of $300 for a day lift ticket. But the high costs of skiing are making the sport more exclusive.

Numerous ski resorts, such as Winter Park, have invested heavily in summer activities such as mountain biking and music festivals to increase revenue. But you can bet your mittens that people in Colorado’s mountain towns are hoping for another big dump of natural snow – and as soon as possible.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Colorado ski resorts got some welcome snowfall from Winter Storm Fern, but not enough to turn a dry and warm winter around – https://theconversation.com/colorado-ski-resorts-got-some-welcome-snowfall-from-winter-storm-fern-but-not-enough-to-turn-a-dry-and-warm-winter-around-272008

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrea De Stefano, Assistant Professor of Forestry, Mississippi State University

For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about 5% of that original forest remains. It was one of North America’s richest ecosystems, and it nearly disappeared.

As part of my job with the Mississippi State University forestry extension, I help private landowners, public agencies and nonprofit conservation groups restore these ecosystems. The forests’ story begins before European settlement, when Native peoples shaped and sustained this vast landscape using one of nature’s oldest tools: fire.

Longleaf pine trees depend on fire for survival and regeneration. Fire reduces competition from other plants, recycles nutrients into the soil and maintains the open structure of the landscape where longleaf pines grow best. In its open, grassy woodlands, red-cockaded woodpeckers, gopher tortoises, orchids, pitcher plants and hundreds of other species find homes.

Native stewardship

Longleaf pine seedlings spend about three to 10 years in a low, grasslike stage, building deep roots and resisting flames that sweep across the forest floor. Regular, low-intensity fires keep the ground open and sunny, and allow an incredibly diverse understory to flourish: pine lilies, meadow beauties, white bog orchids, carnivorous pitcher plants and dozens of native grasses.

For millennia, Native American tribes intentionally set fires to keep these areas open for hunting, travel and agriculture. This practice is evident from Indigenous oral histories, early European accounts and archaeological findings. Fire was part of daily life – a tool, not a danger.

European settlers arrive

When the first Europeans made it to that part of North America, they encountered a landscape that seemed almost limitless: tall, straight pines ideal for shipbuilding; deep soils in the uplands suited for farming; and understory, the plants that grow in the shade of the forest, perfect for open-range grazing.

Longleaf pine trees became the backbone of early industries. They provided lumber, fuel and naval supplies, such as tar, pitch and turpentine, which are essential for waterproofing wooden ships. By the mid-1800s, the naval industry alone consumed millions of longleaf pines each year, especially in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

At the same time, livestock, especially hogs, roamed freely and caused unexpected ecological damage. Hogs rooted up the starchy, above-ground stems of young longleaf seedlings, often wiping out an area’s entire year of seedlings before they could grow beyond the grass stage.

Still, even into the mid-1800s, millions of acres of longleaf forest remained intact. That would soon change.

Industrial logging and the collapse of a forest

By the late 19th century, the industrial South entered a new era of logging. Railroads could reach deep into forests that were previously inaccessible. Steam-powered skidders dragged huge logs to mobile mills that could turn thousands of acres of trees into lumber in a single season. Lumber towns appeared overnight, then disappeared once the last trees were cut.

Most longleaf forests were felled between 1880 and 1930, with little thought given to regrowth. Land was cheap, timber was valuable, and scientific forestry was in its infancy. After logging, what was left on the ground at many sites burned in wildfires too hot for young longleaf pines to survive. Some of the fires were ignited accidentally by sparks from railroads or logging operations, others by lightning, and some by people attempting to clear land.

Other parcels of land were overrun by hogs or were converted to farms. Other forestland simply failed to regenerate because longleaf requires both good seed years and carefully timed burning to establish new generations of seedlings. By 1930, the once-vast longleaf forest was effectively gone.

A turning point

The early 20th century brought public debates about fire. National forestry leaders, trained in northern ecosystems where wildfire was destructive, insisted that all fire was harmful and should be quickly extinguished. Southern landowners disagreed. They had long understood that fire kept the woods open, reduced pests and improved forage.

A series of pioneering researchers, including Herbert Stoddard, Austin Cary and others, proved scientifically what Native peoples had practiced for centuries: Prescribed fire is essential for longleaf pine forests.

By the 1930s, prescribed fire began to gain acceptance among Southern landowners and wildlife biologists, and by the 1940s it was recognized by state forestry agencies and the U.S. Forest Service as a legitimate management tool. This shift marked the beginning of a slow recovery of the forest.

Yet, after the logging of old-growth longleaf pine forests ended, foresters faced challenges regenerating the trees. Early planting attempts often failed. The longleaf species grows more slowly than loblolly or slash pine, making it less attractive to industry.

Millions of acres that once supported longleaf pines were converted to fast-growing plantation pines through the mid-20th century. By 1990, only 2.9 million acres of longleaf pine forest remained.

A new era of restoration

But beginning in the 1980s, research breakthroughs had begun to offer the prospect of change. Studies across the Southeast demonstrated that longleaf pine trees could be reliably planted if seedling quality, site preparation and fire timing were carefully managed.

Improved genetics – for instance, choosing those seedlings more likely to grow straight and tall and those more resistant to disease and drought – and starting seedlings in containers increased survival dramatically.

At the same time, landowners and agencies began to appreciate the benefits of longleaf pines. They are strong enough to withstand hurricanes, resistant to pests and disease, and provide high-quality timber and exceptional wildlife habitat. And they are compatible with grazing, need little to no fertilizer or other support to grow, and are ready to adapt to a warming, more fire-prone climate.

Today, many organizations are restoring longleaf pine trees across national forests, private lands and working farms.

Landowners are choosing the species not only for conservation but for recreation, hunting and cultural reasons.

In many parts of the South, longleaf pines have become a symbol of both heritage and resilience to hurricanes, drought, wildfire and climate change.

The longleaf pine ecosystem is more than a forest: It is the story about how people shape landscapes over centuries. It thrived under Native fire stewardship, declined under industrial exploitation, and is now returning – thanks to science, collaboration and cultural rediscovery.

The future of the longleaf pine forest will depend on continued use of prescribed fire, support for and from private landowners and recognition that restoring a complex ecosystem takes time. But across the South, the open, grassy longleaf pine ecosystems are coming back. A forest once given up for lost is becoming, again, a living emblem of the southern landscape.

Andrea De Stefano 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. How fire, people and history shaped the South’s iconic longleaf pine forests – https://theconversation.com/how-fire-people-and-history-shaped-the-souths-iconic-longleaf-pine-forests-272003