Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jeffrey Sklansky, Professor of History, University of Illinois Chicago

Most of the world observes International Workers’ Day on May 1 or the first Monday in May each year, but not the United States and Canada. Instead, Americans and Canadians have celebrated Labor Day as a national holiday on the first Monday in September since 1894, 12 years after the first observance of Labor Day in New York City.

The celebrations aren’t the same.

In much of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, the event commonly called May Day honors workers’ political and economic power, often with demonstrations by socialist or workers’ parties and tributes to national labor rights. America’s Labor Day features labor union parades in many places, but for most Americans, it’s less about organized labor and more about barbecues, beach days and back-to-school sales.

Both holidays, however, arose during the same period, in the U.S. nearly 150 years ago, in the midst of an explosive labor uprising in America’s industrial heartland. Their founding united native-born and immigrant workers in an extraordinary alliance to demand an eight-hour workday at a time when American workers toiled an average of 10 or more hours daily, six days a week.

The call for shorter hours was rooted in a big idea: that workers’ days belonged to them, even if employers owned their workplaces and paid for their work. That idea inspired the loftiest goals of a growing labor movement that spanned from Chicago and New York to Stockholm and Saint Petersburg. And the labor activism of the late 1800s still casts a distant light on Labor Day today, carrying a vital message about the struggle for control of workers’ daily lives.

I’m a historian at the University of Illinois Chicago, where I study the history of labor. The fight for shorter hours is no longer a top issue for organized labor in the U.S.. But it was a crusade for the eight-hour day that brought together the diverse coalition of labor groups that created Labor Day and May Day in the 1880s.

Labor Day’s radical roots

Led by socialist-leaning trade unions, Labor Day’s founders included skilled, native-born craft workers defending control over their trades, immigrant laborers seeking relief from daylong drudgery, and revolutionary anarchists who saw the quest for control of the workers’ day as a step toward seizing factories and smashing the state.

They originally chose Sept. 5, 1882, for the first Labor Day to coincide with a general assembly in New York City of what was then the largest and broadest association of American workers, the Knights of Labor. Two years later, labor leaders moved the annual event to the first Monday in September, giving the majority of workers a two-day weekend for the first time.

As Labor Day parades and picnics spread, many American cities and states soon made it an official holiday. But since few employers gave workers the day off in its early years, Labor Day likewise became “a virtual one-day general strike in many cities,” according to historians Michael Kazin and Steven Ross.

American roots of May Day

My students come from working-class, mostly immigrant families, and Chicago’s history of labor conflict is all around our downtown campus in the heart of what were once meatpacking plants, stockyards and crowded immigrant neighborhoods.

My office is about 12 blocks from the spot – surrounded today by upscale office buildings – where the eight-hour movement reached a bloody climax in the battle of Haymarket Square. May Day commemorates that battle.

On May 1, 1886, unions of skilled workers organized by their crafts or trades led a nationwide general strike for the eight-hour day. They were joined by radical socialists, militant anarchists and many members of the Knights of Labor. More than 100,000 workers took part across the country.

The most dramatic demonstrations happened in Chicago, which had become the second-largest city in the U.S. after years of swift growth. Nearly 40,000 striking Chicago workers shut down much of that burgeoning industrial, agricultural and commercial hub. Three days later, a bomb thrown at a rally in Haymarket Square killed seven police officers, sparking a sweeping nationwide crackdown on labor activism.

In 1889, socialist trade unions and workers’ parties, meeting in Paris for the first congress of a new Socialist International, proclaimed May 1 an international workers’ holiday. They were partly following the lead of the new American Federation of Labor, which had called for renewed strikes on the anniversary of the 1886 action.

And they were honoring the memory of the eight labor activists who had been tried and convicted for the Haymarket bombing solely on the basis of their speeches and radical politics, in what was widely viewed as a rigged trial. Four “Haymarket martyrs” had been hanged and a fifth died by suicide before he could be executed.

An earlier labor win

Though May 1 had long been associated with European celebrations of springtime, its modern meaning has deeper American roots that precede the Haymarket tragedy. It was on that date in 1867 that workers in Chicago celebrated an earlier victory.

At the end of the Civil War, campaigns for an eight-hour workday arose in cities across the country, championing a common interpretation of the abolition of slavery: for many workers, emancipation meant that employers purchased only their labor, not their lives.

Employers might monopolize workers’ means of making a living, but not their hours and days.

The movement led to laws declaring an eight-hour day in six states, including Illinois, where the new rule went into effect on May 1, 1867. But employers widely disobeyed or circumvented the laws, and states failed to enforce them while they lasted, so workers continued to struggle for a shorter workday.

Seizing the day

In the 19th century, American workers’ labor came to be measured by how long they worked and how much they were paid. While they were divided by their widely different wages, they were united by the generally uniform hours at each workplace.

The demand for a shorter workday without a pay cut was designed to appeal to all wage earners no matter who they were, where they were from, or what they did for a living.

Labor leaders said shorter hours meant employers would have to hire more people, creating jobs and boosting hourly pay. Spending less time on the job would enable workers to become bigger consumers, spurring economic growth.

Having “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will,” a popular labor movement refrain, would also leave more time for education, organization and political action.

Most broadly, the fight for shorter hours encapsulated workers’ struggle to control their own time, both on and off the job. That far-reaching struggle included efforts to limit the number of years people spent earning a living by ending child labor and creating pensions for retired workers – a topic I’m currently researching.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Time is money,” meaning that time off costs money that workers could be making on the job. But the message of the movement for a shorter workday was that the worth of workers’ lives could not be calculated in dollars and cents.

Diverging holidays

In the Haymarket battle’s aftermath, the alliance of radicals and reformers, factory operatives and skilled artisans, U.S.-born workers and immigrant laborers began to come apart. And as union leaders in the American Federation of Labor parted ways with socialists and anarchists, each side of the divided workers’ movement claimed one of the two labor days as its own, making the holidays appear increasingly opposed and losing sight of their shared foundation in the campaign for a shorter workday.

Conservative politicians and employers hostile to unions began to equate labor organizing with bomb throwing. In response, trade unions seeking acceptance as part of American industry and democracy displayed their allegiance on Labor Day by waving the American flag, singing patriotic songs and portraying themselves as proud, native-born Americans as opposed to foreign workers with subversive ideas.

Many political radicals and the immigrant workers among whom they found much of their following, meanwhile, came to identify more with the international workers’ movement associated with May Day than with American business and politics. They disavowed May Day’s origins among American trade unions, even as many trade unions distanced themselves from the radical roots of Labor Day. By the turn of the century, May Day moved further from the center of American culture, while Labor Day became more mainstream and less militant.

20th-century gains and losses

In the 20th century, labor unions won shorter hours for many of their members across the country. But they detached that demand from the broader agenda of workers’ autonomy and international solidarity.

They gained a landmark achievement with the federal enactment of the eight-hour day and 40-hour workweek for many industries during the 1930s. At that point, economist John Maynard Keynes projected that the rising productivity of labor would enable 21st-century wage earners to work just three hours a day.

Workers’ productivity did keep climbing as Keynes predicted, and their wages rose apace – until the 1970s. But their work hours did not decline, leaving the three-hour day a forgotten vision of what organized labor might achieve.

Jeffrey Sklansky is a member of UIC United Faculty, the labor union representing the bargaining units of Tenure/Tenure-Track and full-time Non-Tenure Track faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago.

– ref. Labor Day and May Day emerged from the movement for a shorter workday in industrial America – https://theconversation.com/labor-day-and-may-day-emerged-from-the-movement-for-a-shorter-workday-in-industrial-america-262379

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Naomi S. Baron, Professor Emerita of Linguistics, American University

A perfect storm is brewing for reading.

AI arrived as both kids and adults were already spending less time reading books than they did in the not-so-distant past.

As a linguist, I study how technology influences the ways people read, write and think.

This includes the impact of artificial intelligence, which is dramatically changing how people engage with books or other kinds of writing, whether it’s assigned, used for research or read for pleasure. I worry that AI is accelerating an ongoing shift in the value people place on reading as a human endeavor.

Everything but the book

AI’s writing skills have gotten plenty of attention. But researchers and teachers are only now starting to talk about AI’s ability to “read” massive datasets before churning out summaries, analyses or comparisons of books, essays and articles.

Need to read a novel for class? These days, you might get by with skimming through an AI-generated summary of the plot and key themes. This kind of possibility, which undermines people’s motivation to read on their own, prompted me to write a book about the pros and cons of letting AI do the reading for you.

Palming off the work of summarizing or analyzing texts is hardly new. CliffsNotes dates back to the late 1950s. Centuries earlier, the Royal Society of London began producing summaries of the scientific papers that appeared in its voluminous “Philosophical Transactions.” By the mid-20th century, abstracts had become ubiquitous in scholarly articles. Potential readers could now peruse the abstract before deciding whether to tackle the piece in its entirety.

The internet opened up an array of additional reading shortcuts. For instance, Blinkist is an app-based, subscription service that condenses mostly nonfiction books into roughly 15-minute summaries – called “Blinks” – that are available in both audio and text.

But generative AI elevates such workarounds to new heights. AI-driven apps like BooksAI provide the kinds of summaries and analyses that used to be crafted by humans. Meanwhile, BookAI.chat invites you to “chat” with books. In neither case do you need to read the books yourself.

If you’re a student asked to compare Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” as coming-of-age novels, CliffsNotes only gets you so far. Sure, you can read summaries of each book, but you still must do the comparison yourself. With general large language models or specialized tools such as Google NotebookLM, AI handles both the “reading” and the comparing, even generating smart questions to pose in class.

The downside is that you lose out on a critical benefit of reading a coming-of-age novel: the personal growth that comes from vicariously experiencing the protagonist’s struggles.

In the world of academic research, AI offerings like SciSpace, Elicit and Consensus combine the power of search engines and large language models. They locate relevant articles and then summarize and synthesize them, slashing the hours needed to conduct literature reviews. On its website, Elsevier’s ScienceDirect AI gloats: “Goodbye wasted reading time. Hello relevance.”

Maybe. Excluded from the process is judging for yourself what counts as relevant and making your own connections between ideas.

Reader unfriendly?

Even before generative AI went mainstream, fewer people were reading books, whether for pleasure or for class.

In the U.S., the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that the number of fourth graders who read for fun almost every day slipped from 53% in 1984 to 39% in 2022. For eighth graders? From 35% in 1984 to 14% in 2023. The U.K.’s 2024 National Literacy Trust survey revealed that only one in three 8- to 18-year-olds said they enjoyed reading in their spare time, a drop of almost 9 percentage points from just the previous year.

Similar trends exist among older students. In a 2018 survey of 600,000 15-year-olds across 79 countries, 49% reported reading only when they had to. That’s up from 36% about a decade earlier.

The picture for college students is no brighter. A spate of recent articles has chronicled how little reading is happening in American higher education. My work with literacy researcher Anne Mangen found that faculty are reducing the amount of reading they assign, often in response to students refusing to do it.

Emblematic of the problem is a troubling observation from cultural commentator David Brooks:

“I once asked a group of students on their final day at their prestigious university what book had changed their life over the previous four years. A long, awkward silence followed. Finally a student said: ‘You have to understand, we don’t read like that. We only sample enough of each book to get through the class.’”

Now adults … according to YouGov, just 54% of Americans read at least one book in 2023. The situation in South Korea is even bleaker, where only 43% of adults said they had read at least one book in 2023, down from almost 87% in 1994. In the U.K., The Reading Agency observed declines in adult reading and hinted at one reason why. In 2024, 35% of adults identified as lapsed readers – they once read regularly, but no longer do. Of those lapsed readers, 26% indicated they had stopped reading because of time spent on social media.

The phrase “lapsed reader” might now apply to anyone who deprioritizes reading, whether it’s due to lack of interest, devoting more time to social media or letting AI do the reading for you.

All that’s lost, missed and forgotten

Why read in the first place?

The justifications are endless, as are the streams of books and websites making the case. There’s reading for pleasure, stress reduction, learning and personal development.

You can find correlations between reading and brain growth in children, happiness, longevity and slowing cognitive decline.

This last issue is particularly relevant as people increasingly let AI do cognitive work on their behalf, a process known as cognitive offloading. Research has emerged showing the extent to which people are engaging in cognitive offloading when they use AI. The evidence reveals that the more users rely on AI to perform work for them, the less they see themselves as drawing upon their own thinking capacities. A study employing EEG measurements found different brain connectivity patterns when participants enlisted AI to help them write an essay than when writing it on their own.

It’s too soon to know what effects AI might have on our long-term ability to think for ourselves. What’s more, the research so far has largely focused on writing tasks or general use of AI tools, not on reading. But if we lose practice in reading and analyzing and formulating our own interpretations, those skills are at risk of weakening.

Cognitive skills aren’t the only thing at stake when we rely too heavily on AI to do our reading work for us. We also miss out on so much of what makes reading enjoyable – encountering a moving piece of dialogue, relishing a turn of phrase, connecting with a character.

AI’s lure of efficiency is tantalizing. But it risks undermining the benefits of literacy.

Naomi S. Baron 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. AI is making reading books feel obsolete – and students have a lot to lose – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-making-reading-books-feel-obsolete-and-students-have-a-lot-to-lose-262680

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Liza Barros-Lane, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Houston-Downtown

The July 4 floods in Kerr County, Texas, sent shockwaves across the country. Now that most of the victims’ burials are over, the weight of grief is just beginning for loved ones left behind. It’s the daily devastation of an upended world where absence is glaringly present, nothing feels familiar, and life is paused in dizzying stillness.

I know this pain intimately. I’m a grief researcher, social work professor and widow. I lost my husband, Brent, in a drowning accident when I was 36. He went missing two days before his body was found.

Brent was a psychologist who specialized in grief, and we were trained to support others through suffering. Yet nothing could prepare me for my own loss.

Research and personal experience have shown me that profound loss disrupts the nervous system, sparking intense emotional swings and unleashing a cascade of physical symptoms. This kind of pain can make ordinary moments feel unbearable, so learning how to manage it is essential to surviving early grief. Thankfully, there are evidence-based tools to help people get through the rawest phases of loss.

Why early grief feels so disorienting

Losing someone central to your daily life unravels the routines that once anchored you.

Traumatic losses, the kind that arrive suddenly, violently or in ways that feel horrifying, carry a different kind of weight: the anguish of how the person died, the unanswered questions and the shock of having no time to prepare or say goodbye.

Everyday acts, like eating or going to bed, can highlight the absence and trigger both grief and dread. These moments reveal that grief is a whole-being experience. It affects not just our emotions, but also our bodies, thoughts, routines and sense of safety in the world.

Emotionally, grief can be chaotic. Emotions swing unpredictably, from sobs one moment to numbness the next. Mental health professionals call this emotional dysregulation, which includes feeling out of touch with emotions, reacting too little or too much, getting stuck in one emotional state or struggling to shift perspective.

Cognitively, focus feels impossible and memory lapses increase. Even knowing the loved one is gone, the brain scans for the person, expecting their voice or text, a natural attachment response that fuels disbelief, yearning and panic.

Physically, grief floods the body with stress hormones, leading to insomnia, fatigue, aches, heaviness and chest tightness. After losing someone close, studies suggest a brief increase in mortality risk, often from added strain on the heart, immune system and mental health.

Spiritually and existentially, loss can shake your beliefs to the core and make the world feel confusing, hollow and stripped of meaning.

Grief research confirms that these intense symptoms are typical for some time, exacerbated after traumatic loss.

Finding a new baseline

Eventually, most people begin to stabilize. But after traumatic loss, it’s not uncommon for that sense of chaos to linger for months or even years. In the beginning, treat yourself like someone recovering from major surgery: Rest often, move slowly and protect your energy.

Initially, you may only be able to manage small, familiar acts, such as brushing your teeth or making your bed, that remind you: I’m still here. That’s OK. Right now, your only job is survival, one manageable step at a time.

As you face everyday responsibilities again, allow space for rest. After Brent died, I brought a mat to work to lie down whenever fatigue or emotional weight became unbearable. I didn’t recognize this as pain management then, but that helped me survive the hardest days.

According to grief theorists, one of the most important tasks in early grief is learning to manage and bear emotional pain. Mourners must allow themselves to feel the weight of the loss.

But pain management isn’t just about sitting with the hurt. It also means knowing when to step away without slipping into avoidance, which can lead to panic, numbness and exhaustion. As Brent used to say, “The goal is to pick it up and put it down.” Taking intentional breaks through distraction or rest can make it possible to return to the grief without being consumed by it.

It also involves soothing yourself when the grief waves hit.

Five small but powerful ways to face painful moments

Here are five simple evidence-based tools designed to make painful moments more bearable for you or a grieving loved one. They won’t erase the pain, but they can quickly offer relief for the raw, jagged edges of early grief.

1. Gentle touch to ease loneliness

Place one hand on your chest, stomach or gently on your cheek – wherever you instinctively reach when you’re in pain. Inhale slowly. As you exhale, say softly aloud or in your mind: “This hurts.” Then, “I’m here” or “I’m not alone in this.” Stay for one to two minutes, or as long as feels comfortable.

Why it helps: Grief often leaves you touch-starved, aching for physical connection. Soothing self-touch, a self-compassion practice, activates the vagus nerve, which helps regulate heart rate, breathing and the body’s calming response after stress. This gesture offers warmth and grounding, reducing the isolation of heartache.

2. Riding the wave

When grief surges, set a timer for two to five minutes. Stay with the emotion. Breathe. Observe it without judgment. If it’s too much, distract yourself briefly, such as by counting backward, then return to the feeling and notice how it may have shifted.

Why it helps: Emotions rise like waves. This skill helps you stay present during emotional surges without panicking, and it helps you learn that emotional surges peak and pass without destroying you. It draws from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, an evidence-based treatment for people experiencing intense emotional dysregulation.

3. Soothing with soft textures

Wrap yourself in a soft blanket. Hold a stuffed animal. Or stroke your pet’s fur. Focus on the texture for two to five minutes. Breathe slowly.

Why it helps: Softness signals safety to your nervous system. It gives comfort when pain is too raw for words.

4. Cooling down overwhelm

Therapists often teach a set of DBT skills called TIPP to help people manage emotional overwhelm during crises like grief. TIPP stands for:

Temperature: Use cold, such as holding ice or applying cold water to the face, to trigger a calming response.

Intense exercise: Engage in short bursts of movement to release tension.

Paced breathing: Breathe in slow, controlled breaths to reduce arousal. Inhale slowly for two to four seconds, then exhale for four to six seconds.

Progressive muscle relaxation: Tense and release individual muscle groups to ease stress.

Why it helps: During grief, the nervous system can swing between high-arousal states, like panic and racing heart, to low-arousal states such as numbness and sadness.

Individual responses vary, but cold exposure can help calm a racing heart in moments of overwhelm, while pacing breathing or muscle relaxation soothes numbness and sadness.

5. Rating your pain

Rate your pain from 1 to 10. Then ask, “Why is it a 7, not a 10?” Or “When was it even slightly better?” Write down what helped.

Why it helps: Spotting even slight relief builds hope. It reminds you that the pain isn’t constant, and that small moments of relief are real and meaningful.

Even with these tools, there will still be moments that feel unbearable, when the future seems unreachable and dark.

In those moments, remind yourself that you don’t have to move forward now. This simple reminder helped me in the moments I felt completely panicked; when I couldn’t see how I’d survive the next hour, much less the future. Tell yourself: Just survive this moment. Then the next.

Lean on friends, counselors or hotlines like the Disaster Distress Hotline (1-800-985-5990) or the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (988). If deep emotional pain continues to overwhelm you, seek professional help.

With support and care, you’ll begin to adapt to this changed world. Over time, the pain can soften, even if it never fully leaves, and you may find yourself slowly rebuilding a life shaped by grief, love and the courage to keep going.

Liza Barros-Lane 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. Grief feels unbearable, disorienting and chaotic – a grief researcher and widow shares evidence-based ways to face the early days of loss – https://theconversation.com/grief-feels-unbearable-disorienting-and-chaotic-a-grief-researcher-and-widow-shares-evidence-based-ways-to-face-the-early-days-of-loss-262423

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

It’s August, and parents and caregivers are frantically preparing their kids for a new school year by buying supplies, filling out forms and meeting teachers. This year, many parents also face a question that’s more complicated than usual: Should my child get an updated COVID-19 vaccine, and will I even have that choice? For some, that decision may have already been made by chaotic federal policy, just as COVID-19 cases are rising nationwide.

As a pediatrician and researcher who studies vaccine delivery and health policy, I am hearing uncertainty from both parents and health care providers. If that describes you, you are not alone. A poll published Aug. 1, 2025, by the health policy organization KFF found half of parents are unsure whether federal health agencies are recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children this fall.

The process that normally provides clear, consistent recommendations and ensures availability for vaccines before respiratory virus season has been upended, and this year’s COVID-19 vaccine guidance for children is a prime example.

How the process typically works

For over two decades, there was a predictable, well-coordinated process to ensure recommended seasonal vaccines, such as the flu shot, were available for anyone who wanted them by early fall. In recent years, COVID-19 vaccines have been incorporated into this same annual cycle.

Beginning in February, the Food and Drug Administration, including its independent committee of experts, reviewed data and approved the optimal formulation. After FDA approval, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, an independent panel of experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reviewed the evidence in public meetings and issued clear recommendations.

Manufacturers then scaled up production; insurers confirmed coverage, which is tied to the advisory committee’s recommendations; and doses were distributed nationwide so vaccines would be available in clinics and pharmacies before the leaves started turning. This usual series of steps ensured that guidance incorporated input from scientists, epidemiologists, public health experts, clinicians, manufacturers, insurers and consumers. It also fostered trust among health care providers and, in turn, provided parents with clarity and confidence when making decisions.

What’s different this year

Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as secretary of Health and Human Services in February 2025, that usual, tightly choreographed dance has become a chaotic scramble marked by uncertainty and a lack of transparency. Decisions about vaccine guidance have been made through internal channels without the same level of public discussion, review of the evidence or broad stakeholder input.

In May 2025, Kennedy and FDA leadership bypassed the agency’s independent review committee and announced that some COVID-19 vaccines would be approved only for children with high-risk conditions. One formulation has yet to be FDA-approved for children at all. The secretary first announced updated recommendations for children on X, stating COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children. Shortly after, the CDC posted guidelines that differed from that announcement and said healthy children “may” receive them. Meanwhile, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was disbanded by Kennedy and replaced with a smaller, hand-picked panel that operates with less transparency and has yet to weigh in on COVID-19 vaccines for children.

Public messaging has added to the confusion. Statements from newly appointed federal health leaders have questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and the long-standing processes for ensuring their safety. Funding for mRNA technology, which supports several COVID-19 vaccines and is being explored for use against other diseases and even some cancers, has been cut. And many of the claims used to justify these actions have been challenged by experts as inaccurate or misleading.

What this means for parents

For parents, the result is uncertainty about whether their children should be vaccinated, when and where the vaccines will be available, whether insurance will cover them, or whether their choice has effectively been made for them by newly appointed health leaders operating outside the guardrails of the normal vetting process. This uncertainty comes at a time when the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in children is already lower than that of other routine vaccines.

Currently, CDC guidelines say healthy children six months and older “may” receive a COVID-19 vaccine based on shared decision-making with their health care provider. The CDC recommends that children who are moderately or severely immunocompromised receive it. These guidelines differ from FDA approvals and Kennedy’s guidelines announced on X, and they have not been reviewed or voted on in an advisory committee on immunization practices meeting.

Parents can start by talking with their child’s pediatrician about benefits and potential risks, confirming eligibility and checking on insurance coverage. Pediatricians welcome parents’ questions and work tirelessly to provide answers grounded in the best available evidence so families can make truly informed decisions about their child’s health.

In some cases, unfortunately, even if parents want the vaccine and their pediatrician agrees, they may not be able to get it due to any number of factors, including local supply shortages, lack of insurance coverage, policies that prevent administration by pharmacists and other health providers without clear federal guidance, or an unwillingness of providers to give it “off-label,” meaning in a way that differs from the FDA’s official approval. For those parents, their decision has been made for them.

Reducing risks in other ways

Whether or not a child receives an updated COVID-19 vaccine, parents can still take steps to reduce illness, including keeping children home when sick, teaching them cough-and-sneeze hygiene and encouraging frequent hand-washing. The CDC provides national and state data on seasonal respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, while local public health websites often offer community-level information.

Parents should also remember that the COVID-19 vaccine is not the only thing to consider before school starts. Routine immunizations such as those for measles, mumps and rubella, known as the MMR vaccine; diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, called DTaP; and influenza are essential for keeping kids healthy and in school. These are widely available for now. This is particularly important, as this year the United States has experienced the highest number of measles cases in decades.

Uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, and potentially other vaccines, may worsen in the coming weeks and months. It is possible parents will continue to see shifting guidance, conflicting statements from federal agencies and reduced access to vaccines in their communities.

In this chaotic environment, parents can look to trusted sources such as their pediatrician or organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which will continue to provide independent, evidence-based vaccine guidance.

David Higgins is affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics and Immunize Colorado

– ref. COVID-19 vaccines for kids are mired in uncertainty amid conflicting federal guidance – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-vaccines-for-kids-are-mired-in-uncertainty-amid-conflicting-federal-guidance-262685

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By H. Christopher Frey, Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University

The Trump administration’s plan to unravel many of the nation’s climate policies hinges on rescinding what’s known as the endangerment finding. But its strategy for doing that appears to run afoul of several federal laws.

The endangerment finding is a 2009 determination by the Environmental Protection Agency that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, contribute to climate change and therefore pose a threat to public health and welfare.

The scientific evidence of these threats has gotten stronger in the years since the endangerment finding was made. That evidence is laid out in multiple national and international reports written by hundreds of scientists who reviewed the data and research.

In contrast, the EPA’s proposal to now rescind the endangerment finding is based in part on a new Department of Energy report written by five people, named as the “Climate Working Group.” All five have been outspoken critics of mainstream climate science. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he handpicked the group to write the report.

The group’s report cherry-picks information and misrepresents uncertainties. Some scientists whose studies it cites have complained that the authors misrepresented their research. Others are speaking out about factual problems with the report.

I have served in the federal government and on numerous scientific federal advisory committees, and I’ve seen firsthand the rigorous requirements that federal agencies are supposed to meet so that scientific information they disseminate can be trusted by the public.

The Energy Department and the EPA seem to have run afoul of four laws in particular that may be tricky for the administration to get around.

1. Has the Energy Department produced a credible report?

A casual reader might think the Energy Department climate report is credible.

Its inside cover affirms that it “is being disseminated … in compliance with” the Information Quality Act. The word “disseminated” means that this is a final report and not just a draft.

The Information Quality Act, passed by Congress in 2000, requires “ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.”

This law is the basis for federal guidance on scientific peer review for all agencies. It also requires agencies to provide the public with an opportunity to request corrections in final reports if they were not properly developed or lack balance, accuracy and objectivity. The agency decides whether to grant the request, but there is an appeals process.

Government scientific products considered final also must have previously undergone independent external peer review conducted in an “open and rigorous manner,” according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

One author of the Energy Department’s report stated that the report was reviewed by “eight scientists/administrators employed by the DOE.” However, this does not meet the government’s standards for implementing the law, which requires a public record of review by scientific experts not affiliated with the department that issued the report.

2. Agencies cannot cherry-pick groups to give answers they want

The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, or FACA, addressed concerns that “special interest groups” could “exercise undue influence” in promoting “their private concerns” on “matters in which they have vested interests.”

The law requires a public process for creating and appointing groups to advise the government and requires that the properly appointed group operates in public view and takes public comments along the way.

According to the DOE’s own guidance, “FACA applies when a group is asked to render advice or recommendations as a group and not a collection of individuals.”

Thus, the group chosen to write the department’s report falls within the scope of FACA. The law requires that a committee representing a fair balance of viewpoints be chartered under FACA and that members be appointed only after a public nomination process with public opportunity to comment on the list of candidates.

Once appointed, a balanced group is also required to deliberate in public and receive public comments in formulating their report. That didn’t happen.

3. Federal agencies cannot be arbitrary or inconsistent in rulemaking

The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 requires federal agencies to allow public participation in rulemaking processes and to follow consistent procedures and practices when developing regulations.

The law prohibits actions that are “arbitrary and capricious” – meaning decisions made without justification or regard for facts – or an “abuse of discretion.”

Agencies are expected to examine relevant data. They must not only follow applicable laws, such as FACA, but also must follow procedures established to implement those laws, such as balanced membership of the committee and opportunity for public comment when formulating the report.

4. Science Advisory Board review is also required

The EPA is also subject to the Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978. The act mandated that the EPA must establish a Science Advisory Board. It also requires that agency make available to its Science Advisory Board relevant scientific and technical information on any “proposed criteria document, standard, limitation, or regulation.”

The board must be given time to review the scientific and technical basis of the proposed action – in this case, the disseminated Energy Department report – now that the EPA is using this report to inform its regulatory action.

Under the Information Quality Act, the EPA may not develop a regulation based on a draft report.

The EPA’s Science Advisory Board website lists zero members as of mid-August 2025. On Jan. 28, 2025, the EPA dismissed all of the board’s previous members. Nominations for new board members were due on June 2. At best, it will be months before the EPA can seat a new Science Advisory Board because of time needed to complete the selection, appointment and ethics review processes.

Either the EPA could follow the law and suspend any proposed actions until the Science Advisory Board is available, or accept legal risk for not following the Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act.

What’s next?

These laws exist to protect the public by preventing the federal government from being unduly influenced by narrow interests when disseminating evidence that informs policy decisions. Science-based agencies such as the Energy Department and the EPA have a legal requirement to follow the science.

The public has a chance to comment on the EPA’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding and greenhouse gas vehicle standards until Sept. 15, 2025. And although the Energy Department disseminated its report as a final version, the department is accepting public comments on the report through Sept. 2.

For both, the most effective comments are evidence-based and not merely opinion.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, independent nonprofit institutions that advise the government, announced in early August that they will conduct a fast-track review of the science on whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare to submit as a public comment.

Because the Energy Department report is presented as final, it is also subject to the “request for correction” process under the Information Quality Act within 60 days of its initial release.

Given the Energy Department report’s legal vulnerabilities, the Trump administration could consider withdrawing the report and starting over with a legally and scientifically valid approach. If these vulnerabilities are not corrected and the EPA rescinds the endangerment finding based on the Energy Department report, years of litigation are likely to slow the administration’s efforts.

Dr. H. Christopher Frey is currently a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. He has served on numerous scientific advisory committees, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (2004-2006), Science Advisory Board (2012-2018), and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (2008-2015). He was chair of CASAC from 2012 to 2015. He has served on study committees of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. He served at EPA from 2021 to 2022 as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy and from 2022 to 2024 as Assistant Administrator for Research and Development and Science Advisor. While in federal service he co-chaired the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment.

– ref. 4 laws that could stymie the Trump EPA’s plan to rescind the endangerment finding, central to US climate policies – https://theconversation.com/4-laws-that-could-stymie-the-trump-epas-plan-to-rescind-the-endangerment-finding-central-to-us-climate-policies-262952

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Francesco Fedele, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Rogue waves have captivated the attention of both seafarers and scientists for decades. These are giant, isolated waves that appear suddenly in the open ocean.

These puzzling giants are brief, typically lasting less than a minute before disappearing. They can reach heights of 65 feet (20 meters) or greater and often more than twice the height of surrounding waves. Once a nautical myth, rogue waves have now been observed around the world. Because they’re so tall and powerful, they can pose a danger to ships and offshore structures.

To rethink what rogue waves are and what causes them, I gathered an international team of researchers. Our study, published in Nature Scientific Reports, sheds light on these oceanic giants using the most comprehensive dataset of its kind.

By analyzing 18 years of high-frequency laser measurements from the Ekofisk oil platform in the central North Sea, we reached the surprising conclusion that rogue waves aren’t just freak occurrences. They arise under the natural laws of the sea. They are not mysterious, but somewhat simple.

27,500 sea states

We analyzed nearly 27,500 half-hour wave records, or sea states, collected between 2003 and 2020 in the central North Sea. These records, taken every 30 minutes, describe how elevated the sea surface was compared to the average sea level. They include major storms, such as the Andrea wave event in 2007.

Under normal conditions, waves arise from wind blowing over the sea surface. It’s like when you blow over your cup of coffee and form small ripples on the surface. At sea, with enough time and space, those ripples can turn into large waves.

We focused on understanding what causes waves to suddenly go rogue and rise far above their neighboring waves. One proposed theory is based on modulational instability, a phenomenon described by complex mathematical models. I’ve revised these models in the past, as my work suggests that this theory doesn’t fully explain what causes rogue waves in the open ocean.

When waves are trapped within a narrow channel, the modulational instability theory describes their rippling movement well. However, it starts to fall apart when you look at the real ocean. In open environments such as the North Sea, waves are free to propagate from multiple directions.

To understand the difference, imagine a crowd of spectators leaving a stadium after a football game. If the exit is a long, narrow hallway with tall walls, people are forced to move in a single direction. Those at the back push forward, and some may even climb over others, piling up between the confining walls. This catastrophic pileup would resemble a rogue wave, caused by their confinement.

In contrast, if the stadium’s exit opens onto a wide field, spectators can disperse freely in all directions. They don’t push on each other, and they avoid pileups.

Similarly, researchers can generate rogue waves in a confined channel in the lab, where they obey modulational instability. But without the confinement of a channel, rogue waves usually won’t follow those physics or form the same way in the open sea.

Our team knew we had to study the open sea directly to figure out what was really going on. The real-world data my team examined from the North Sea doesn’t line up with modulational instability – it tells a different story.

It’s just a bad day at sea

We analyzed the sea state records using statistical techniques to uncover patterns behind these rare events. Our findings show that instead of modulational instability, the extreme waves observed more likely formed through a process called constructive interference.

Constructive interference happens when two or more waves line up and combine into one big wave. This effect is amplified by the natural asymmetry of sea waves – their crests are typically sharper and steeper than their flatter troughs.

Rogue waves form when lots of smaller waves line up and their steeper crests begin to stack, building up into a single, massive wave that briefly rises far above its surroundings. All it takes for a peaceful boat ride to turn into a bad day at sea is a moment when many ordinary waves converge and stack.

These rogue waves rise and fall in less than a minute, following what’s called a quasi-deterministic pattern in space and time. This type of pattern is recognizable and repeatable, but with touches of randomness. In an idealized ocean, that randomness would almost vanish, allowing rogue waves to grow to nearly infinite heights. But it would also take an eternity to witness one of these waves, since so many would have to line up perfectly. Like waiting for Fortuna, the goddess of chance, to roll a trillion dice and have nearly all of them land on the same number.

In the real ocean, nature limits how large a rogue wave can grow thanks to wave breaking. As the wave rises in height and energy, it can’t hold itself beyond a certain point of no return. The tip of the wave spills over and breaks into foam, or whitecap, releasing the excess energy.

The quasi-deterministic pattern behind rogue waves

Rogue waves aren’t limited to the sea. Constructive interference can happen to many types of waves. A general theory called the quasi-determinism of waves, developed by oceanographer Paolo Boccotti, explains how rogue waves form, both in the ocean and in other wave systems.

For example, for turbulent water flowing through a confined channel, a rogue wave manifests in the form of an intense, short-lived spike in vortices – patterns of spinning swirls in the water that momentarily grow larger as they move downstream.

While ocean waves seem unpredictable, Boccotti’s theory shows that extreme waves are not completely random. When a really big wave forms, the waves in the sea around it follow a recognizable pattern formed through constructive interference.

We applied Boccotti’s theory to identify and characterize these patterns in the measured North Sea wave records.

The giant waves observed in these records carry a kind of signature or fingerprint, in the form of a wave group, which can reveal how the rogue wave came to life. Think of a wave group like a small package of waves moving together. They rise, peak and then fade away through constructive interference. Tracking these wave groups allows researchers to understand the bigger picture of a rogue event as it unfolds.

As one example, a powerful storm hit the North Sea on Nov. 24, 2023. A camera at the Ekofisk platform captured a massive 55 foot (17 meter) rogue wave. I applied the theory of quasi-determinism and an AI model to investigate the origin of this extreme wave. My analysis revealed that the rogue event followed these theories – quasi-determinism and constructive interference – and came from multiple smaller waves repeatedly stacking together.

Recognizing how rogue waves form can help engineers and designers build safer ships and offshore platforms – and better predict risks.

Francesco Fedele 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. My research team used 18 years of sea wave records to learn how destructive ‘rogue waves’ form – here’s what we found – https://theconversation.com/my-research-team-used-18-years-of-sea-wave-records-to-learn-how-destructive-rogue-waves-form-heres-what-we-found-260900

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Filomena Nunes, Professor of Physics, Michigan State University

As a graduate student in physics, I was often the only woman in the room. As I gained more experience, I learned valuable lessons about the scientific community and how to better advance my career. Once I started mentoring female graduate students, I realized that many of them had also felt alienated around some scientists, an experience that chipped away at their confidence or the passion for their work.

Over two decades of doing research and mentoring students, I have compiled some tools that give women the power to improve their own experiences in the STEM world. In 2019, I turned these resources into an experiential course called Tools for Women in STEM. Although the course is designed for women, all genders are welcome.

There are many reasons women are underrepresented in STEM, including bias and stereotypes, but also workplace cultures and the absence of policies for work-life balance. A report from the American Association for University Women makes recommendations for improving the retention of women in STEM careers: ensuring women are getting the mentoring they need, supporting a work-life balance and creating a welcoming culture.

This is all easier said than done. Despite the many programs and initiatives implemented across the country since 2010, when the AAUW report came out, the percentage of women in many fields of science, technology, engineering and math continues to stay very low, with a trend that is flat at best. Even if they come into the field, many choose to leave.

What does the course explore?

To help young women navigate their professional lives in STEM, I start by taking each student on a personal journey, beginning by contextualizing their experiences in STEM. Students reflect on the shame triggers that can make them feel like they’re not good enough even when their record is stellar, as well as any biases they may have about others. Self-awareness is an essential starting point.

Students then work on skills with real-life impact, ranging from networking at meetings and building effective relationships with mentors to negotiations, dealing with harassment and exploring leadership roles. This is done through in-class activities and often followed up with practice in their real life.

What does the course prepare students to do?

Prepped by videos and papers, students practice these skills and discuss strategies in small groups. This model provides an opportunity for collaboration and for assimilating and sharpening all the skills covered in the course.

Take mentoring as an example. Students practice reaching out to potential mentors and establishing a new mentoring relationship. Through discussion, students learn to both receive and provide useful feedback. When students have a safe, trusting environment, they’re more inclined to try out new things.

During the last month of the course, students practice communicating effectively in a wide range of circumstances characteristic of a STEM career. They focus on one type of communication each week: scientific presentations, posters, research group meetings and outreach, all important skills in a STEM job that aren’t always formally taught.

We wrap up the course with a “Women in STEM” outreach event that is fully created and implemented by the students themselves. This event has ranged from organizing a STEM research fair, speaking to undergrads about bridges between STEM and real life, and collecting sticky notes from researchers about their experiences in STEM.

As students work together in a safe, trusting environment, they develop their own voices and gain confidence. And the connections established during the course can continue throughout their graduate program.

Why is this course relevant now?

Today, women in STEM have higher expectations for their workplace than those of previous generations, and they are less tolerant of toxic environments. Courses like this can empower students to advocate for a better experience and promote a healthy culture for women in STEM.

Women aren’t the only group underrepresented in STEM. Instruction that tailors these lessons to the challenges faced by other identity groups could help many other students succeed.

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Filomena Nunes receives funding from NSF and DOE.

– ref. Women in STEM face challenges and underrepresentation – this course gives them tools to succeed – https://theconversation.com/women-in-stem-face-challenges-and-underrepresentation-this-course-gives-them-tools-to-succeed-261505

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen Przybylinski, Assistant Professor of Geography, Michigan State University

Homelessness is on the rise in the United States, and in some places, it is becoming more common for the police to arrest someone for sleeping or living in a public space.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court issued a ruling, Grants Pass v. Johnson, that determined it is constitutional to issue citations to or arrest homeless people, even when there is no available shelter.

The ruling reversed earlier federal appeals court rulings from 2019 and 2022 that determined cities cannot enforce anti-camping laws against homeless people if there are not enough shelter beds available for them.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also determined that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments does not protect homeless people from laws criminalizing resting in public places.

As someone who has spent more than a decade researching homelessness and speaking with unhoused communities, I have seen firsthand how enforcement of such laws imposes unavoidable hardships on homeless people and makes it harder for them to find a stable home.

A rise in punitive action against homelessness

In 2024, there were an estimated 771,480 people in the U.S. who experienced homelessness on a single night, the highest number ever recorded.

Since June 2024, almost 220 local measures have passed that restrict or ban acts like sleeping, sitting or panhandling in public in cities that include Phoenix; Gainesville, Florida, and Reno, Nevada.

The rate of unsheltered homelessness, meaning homeless people who are sleeping in places that are not meant for humans to rest in, like parks or cars, is the highest in California.

After the Supreme Court’s decision, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order in July 2024 that directs state agencies and departments to adopt new policies that remove homeless encampments. Those are temporary outdoor living spaces used by homeless people, often on public or private property.

Following this executive order, more than two dozen California cities and towns adopted or considered adopting sweeping bans on homeless encampments.

Not every leader has embraced this approach of what some observers call criminalizing homelessness. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, for example, rejected criminalizing homelessness as “backwards” in June 2024.

Nevertheless, many cities are enforcing existing and new bans on homeless encampments more aggressively than before the Supreme Court decision – despite evidence that such enforcement is not effective in dealing with the problem of homelessness.

The impacts of aggressive enforcement

Research shows that arresting someone without a home for sitting, resting or sleeping in a public place does not reduce homelessness.

Instead, encampment sweeps and camping bans typically displace people from one area to another, while discarding or destroying their personal belongings in the process, such as identification cards, medications and sleeping gear.

This approach also wastes public resources by paying groups to throw away people’s belongings instead of investing that money into actual housing solutions, like creating more affordable housing options.

Homeless encampment sweeps by police or other government officials are also shown to make people living in camps sicker, leading to increases in hospitalizations and even deaths among those dependent on drugs or alcohol.

A punitive shift in San Francisco

San Francisco is an example of an American city with a relatively large homeless population that has taken a more aggressive approach to enforcing bans on homeless encampments over the past year.

A few weeks after the Supreme Court decision, then-San Francisco Mayor London Breed promised to be “very aggressive” in removing homeless encampments. She also said that “building more housing” would not solve the homelessness crisis.

City data shows that in the 12 months since the Supreme Court ruling, San Francisco police had arrested more than 1,000 homeless people for living in a public space – a scale of enforcement rarely seen in the city’s past. In the year leading up to the ruling, 111 people were arrested for illegal lodging

San Francisco identified approximately 8,300 homeless city residents in 2024.

In June 2025, I conducted a survey of 150 homeless people in San Francisco. About 10% of those people who gave a reason for a recent arrest reported being jailed for lodging without permission. Another 6% said they were arrested for trespassing.

In the same survey, which is part of an ongoing project, 54% of homeless San Francisco residents reported being forced to move from a public space at least once.

Another 8% reported being cited for another reason related to trespassing.

A less aggressive path in Portland

Other western American cities with large homeless populations have taken slightly different approaches to removing homelessness encampments since June 2024.

Portland, Oregon, for example, began enforcing a new daytime camping ban in July 2024. But Portland police have only made 11 arrests of homeless people for camping-related violations over the past year.

Other homeless people in Portland have received police citations for other offenses, like trespassing.

As part of my June 2025 study, I surveyed 150 homeless Portland residents. About 49% of respondents reported having been arrested at some point in their lives. Though no respondents were arrested for camping in a prohibited place, 68% of people I spoke with reported that police or other government officers forced them to leave a public space at some point over the past year.

And 13% of those who gave a reason for being cited by police said it was for camping in a prohibited place. Another 11% of homeless people were cited for some other reason related to living without shelter.

As part of the study, I also interviewed residents who had been arrested while living on the street. One Portland resident I interviewed – who asked not to be named to preserve their anonymity – told me they lost the chance to rent an apartment because they were arrested in 2023 on a preexisting, unrelated warrant after a police officer checked their ID – just days before they were supposed to pick up their keys.

“Many unhoused people have warrants simply for failing to appear after being cited for sitting or resting in public space,” they said. “I was supposed to go get the keys and, bam, I got picked up. I was arrested and went to court. Just me being in jail for five, six or five days screwed it all. I didn’t show up to get the keys, and then (the landlord) couldn’t get ahold of me, and they had no idea what was going on.”

The weeklong jail stay not only pushed this person back onto the street, but it also put them back onto a waiting list for housing – where they remain in 2025.

Looking ahead

The Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling did not mandate that cities criminalize homelessness. But it effectively gave cities the green light to do so without fear of violating people’s constitutional protections.

The effects of this ruling will be further felt with President Donald Trump’s July 24, 2025, executive order that ended federal support for approaches like Housing First, a policy that prioritizes providing homeless people with housing, before any other needed help. The order also calls for involuntarily committing homeless people with mental illness to mental health institutions.

As more cities consider tougher encampment ordinances, I think it is worth considering if more punitive measures really address homelessness. Decades of evidence suggest they won’t.

Instead, arresting homeless people often deepens their poverty, increases displacement and diverts public funding away from the real solution – stable, affordable housing.

Stephen Przybylinski 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. San Francisco and other cities, following a Supreme Court ruling, are arresting more homeless people for living on the streets – https://theconversation.com/san-francisco-and-other-cities-following-a-supreme-court-ruling-are-arresting-more-homeless-people-for-living-on-the-streets-262664

Source: The Conversation – USA – By David Alff, Associate Professor of English, University at Buffalo

When former President Joe Biden unveiled his US$1.9 trillion infrastructure plan in 2021, he found the perfect place to go public: Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station rail yard.

Over the din of crackling wires and grumbling engines, the president made his case for revitalizing the country’s roads, ports, airports and rail lines.

Behind Biden sat rows of gleaming Amtrak trains. Among them was a prototype of NextGen Acela, a sleek machine engineered to deliver the fastest passenger service in American history.

On Aug. 28, 2025, NextGen will finally hit the rails, after years of delays.

As the author of a book on the Northeast Corridor, the rail line that connects Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, I know this new train cannot come soon enough for many seaboard riders, even though it launches at a time of diminished political will for passenger rail.

Rail renaissance under fire

The French-designed, American-manufactured NextGen arrives years late due to mechanical defects and failed simulation tests mandated by the Federal Railroad Administration. The new Acela will begin whisking passengers along the corridor after a chaotic year that saw downed wires, busted circuit breakers and brushfires disrupt Amtrak operations.

Gone is Amtrak’s White House champion, railfan-in-chief Biden, replaced by Donald Trump, whose one-time adviser, Elon Musk, called Amtrak a “sad situation,” and who proposed replacing the government-owned carrier with private competitors.

Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner resigned in March 2025, and, in May, Amtrak cut 450 employee positions.

NextGen Acela promises an American rail renaissance in a moment when federally sponsored trains are fighting for their lives, as Biden’s infrastructure ambitions fall to an administration bent on cutting government costs.

These contradictions, however, are nothing new.

Not-so-fast trains

America’s love-hate relationship with fast trains stretches back to October 1964, when Japanese National Railways opened its Shinkansen high-speed line between Tokyo and Osaka.

Japan’s iconic 130-mph bullet train entranced audiences, many of whom saw footage of the new service during televised coverage of the Tokyo Olympics.

Americans wanted their own bullet train but were reluctant to pay the massive infrastructural costs of a Shinkansen system. When Congress passed the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965, it prioritized the development of trains over the reconstruction of tracks, power systems and maintenance facilities.

The resulting services underperformed.

On Dec. 20, 1967, a gas turbine train manufactured by United Aircraft topped 170 mph while testing in New Jersey. But when the so-called TurboTrain entered service, it managed an average pace of just 63 mph on the weaving track between New York and Boston.

The electric-powered Metroliner, which began service in 1969, boasted similar potential but rarely held triple-digit speeds in service and broke down so often that its carrier, the Penn Central Railroad, struggled to keep the trains running between New York and Washington.

Historians usually regard these high-speed forays as resounding failures.

But riders loved them.

Technical flaws aside, both the TurboTrain and Metroliner were a hit with northeastern riders, so much so that Amtrak retained the Metroliner brand until 2006, long after it had retired the ‘60s-era trains.

Reflecting in 1999, rail journalist Don Phillips expressed disbelief “that those dogs were actually popular with the riding public.”

The birth of Acela

Amtrak opened a new era of high-speed rail in 2000 when it launched Acela Express.

Derived from France’s acclaimed TGV design, Acela carries passengers at speeds up to 150 mph on the Northeast Corridor.

Like the Metroliner before it, Acela suffered from design problems and mechanical faults, including cracked yaw dampers and brake discs, which temporarily sidelined the trains.

Rail writer Joseph Vranich described Acela as both “Amtrak’s crown jewel” and a “remarkable fiasco.”

And yet riders flocked to the service. Acela became one of Amtrak’s most popular and lucrative trains – so attractive that it lured business travelers off regional airlines.

When Acela entered service in 2000, Amtrak trains claimed just 37% of air-rail traffic between New York and Washington. By 2021, it had 83%. Between New York and Boston, that figure jumped from 20% to 75%.

Acela 2.0

Now, NextGen Acela takes up the fraught legacy of American high-speed rail. What can we expect of the new train?

NextGen is faster than the original Acela but will not set any world speed records. Its top velocity of 160 mph falls short of global benchmarks set by China’s Fuxing, which hits 217 mph, and Japan’s newest Shinkansens, which reach 200 mph.

With better tracks and signals, NextGen could conceivably ramp up to 186 mph, though such speeds won’t be possible anytime soon.

For now, NextGen will make do with an imperfect corridor. The train’s lightweight design means faster acceleration and lower energy consumption. An enhanced dynamic tilting system will let carriages lean into curves on the corridor’s twisting track, so they lose less speed on turns. The original Acela also tilted, but not as much.

The upgraded onboard experience includes winged headrests, seat-side USB ports and 5G Wi-Fi. More importantly, each NextGen train can seat 82 more passengers than its predecessor. When Amtrak’s full fleet of 28 NextGens enters service, sending the first-generation trains into retirement, Acela service capacity will have increased by 4,728 seats.

This figure may be the train’s greatest achievement in a congested region at a time when Amtrak is posting record ridership.

The effects of the Northeast’s post-pandemic passenger surge are nowhere more visible than the Philadelphia rail yard where Biden spoke four years ago. Amtrak is constructing a new maintenance shop beside the Schuylkill River that will service NextGen trains and cement Philly’s role in the railroad’s addition of a million annual seats to its non-Acela corridor trains. Powered by conventional electric locomotives, these slower, cheaper “Regionals” accounted for 77% of corridor ridership in 2024 and will continue to carry the bulk of northeastern passengers.

Meanwhile, a quarter-mile south of the maintenance shop, America’s third-busiest passenger hub, 30th Street Station, is receiving a generational overhaul with a new food court, exterior plaza, shops and underground access to rapid transit.

These projects demonstrate the economic power of fast, frequent trains in Philly and throughout trackside communities of the Northeast. America’s embattled but resilient high-speed rail tradition may never be the world’s best, but even incremental improvements, like NextGen, cannot help but transform the places they serve.

For Amtrak’s corridor region, the stakes have never been higher.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

David Alff is a member of the Empire State Passenger Association.

– ref. The new NextGen Acela trains promise faster travel and more seats – but arrive as US rail faces an uncertain future – https://theconversation.com/the-new-nextgen-acela-trains-promise-faster-travel-and-more-seats-but-arrive-as-us-rail-faces-an-uncertain-future-256675

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By H. Christopher Frey, Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University

The Trump administration’s plan to unravel many of the nation’s climate policies hinges on rescinding what’s known as the endangerment finding. But its strategy for doing that appears to run afoul of several federal laws.

The endangerment finding is a 2009 determination by the Environmental Protection Agency that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, contribute to climate change and therefore pose a threat to public health and welfare.

The scientific evidence of these threats has gotten stronger in the years since the endangerment finding was made. That evidence is laid out in multiple national and international reports written by hundreds of scientists who reviewed the data and research.

In contrast, the EPA’s proposal to now rescind the endangerment finding is based in part on a new Department of Energy report written by five people, named as the “Climate Working Group.” All five have been outspoken critics of mainstream climate science. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he handpicked the group to write the report.

The group’s report cherry-picks information and misrepresents uncertainties. Some scientists whose studies it cites have complained that the authors misrepresented their research. Others are speaking out about factual problems with the report.

I have served in the federal government and on numerous scientific federal advisory committees, and I’ve seen firsthand the rigorous requirements that federal agencies are supposed to meet so that scientific information they disseminate can be trusted by the public.

The Energy Department and the EPA seem to have run afoul of four laws in particular that may be tricky for the administration to get around.

1. Has the Energy Department produced a credible report?

A casual reader might think the Energy Department climate report is credible.

Its inside cover affirms that it “is being disseminated … in compliance with” the Information Quality Act. The word “disseminated” means that this is a final report and not just a draft.

The Information Quality Act, passed by Congress in 2000, requires “ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.”

This law is the basis for federal guidance on scientific peer review for all agencies. It also requires agencies to provide the public with an opportunity to request corrections in final reports if they were not properly developed or lack balance, accuracy and objectivity. The agency decides whether to grant the request, but there is an appeals process.

Government scientific products considered final also must have previously undergone independent external peer review conducted in an “open and rigorous manner,” according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

One author of the Energy Department’s report stated that the report was reviewed by “eight scientists/administrators employed by the DOE.” However, this does not meet the government’s standards for implementing the law, which requires a public record of review by scientific experts not affiliated with the department that issued the report.

2. Agencies cannot cherry-pick groups to give answers they want

The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, or FACA, addressed concerns that “special interest groups” could “exercise undue influence” in promoting “their private concerns” on “matters in which they have vested interests.”

The law requires a public process for creating and appointing groups to advise the government and requires that the properly appointed group operates in public view and takes public comments along the way.

According to the DOE’s own guidance, “FACA applies when a group is asked to render advice or recommendations as a group and not a collection of individuals.”

Thus, the group chosen to write the department’s report falls within the scope of FACA. The law requires that a committee representing a fair balance of viewpoints be chartered under FACA and that members be appointed only after a public nomination process with public opportunity to comment on the list of candidates.

Once appointed, a balanced group is also required to deliberate in public and receive public comments in formulating their report. That didn’t happen.

3. Federal agencies cannot be arbitrary or inconsistent in rulemaking

The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 requires federal agencies to allow public participation in rulemaking processes and to follow consistent procedures and practices when developing regulations.

The law prohibits actions that are “arbitrary and capricious” – meaning decisions made without justification or regard for facts – or an “abuse of discretion.”

Agencies are expected to examine relevant data. They must not only follow applicable laws, such as FACA, but also must follow procedures established to implement those laws, such as balanced membership of the committee and opportunity for public comment when formulating the report.

4. Science Advisory Board review is also required

The EPA is also subject to the Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978. The act mandated that the EPA must establish a Science Advisory Board. It also requires that agency make available to its Science Advisory Board relevant scientific and technical information on any “proposed criteria document, standard, limitation, or regulation.”

The board must be given time to review the scientific and technical basis of the proposed action – in this case, the disseminated Energy Department report – now that the EPA is using this report to inform its regulatory action.

Under the Information Quality Act, the EPA may not develop a regulation based on a draft report.

The EPA’s Science Advisory Board website lists zero members as of mid-August 2025. On Jan. 28, 2025, the EPA dismissed all of the board’s previous members. Nominations for new board members were due on June 2. At best, it will be months before the EPA can seat a new Science Advisory Board because of time needed to complete the selection, appointment and ethics review processes.

Either the EPA could follow the law and suspend any proposed actions until the Science Advisory Board is available, or accept legal risk for not following the Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act.

What’s next?

These laws exist to protect the public by preventing the federal government from being unduly influenced by narrow interests when disseminating evidence that informs policy decisions. Science-based agencies such as the Energy Department and the EPA have a legal requirement to follow the science.

The public has a chance to comment on the EPA’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding and greenhouse gas vehicle standards until Sept. 15, 2025. And although the Energy Department disseminated its report as a final version, the department is accepting public comments on the report through Sept. 2.

For both, the most effective comments are evidence-based and not merely opinion.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, independent nonprofit institutions that advise the government, announced in early August that they will conduct a fast-track review of the science on whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare to submit as a public comment.

Because the Energy Department report is presented as final, it is also subject to the “request for correction” process under the Information Quality Act within 60 days of its initial release.

Given the Energy Department report’s legal vulnerabilities, the Trump administration could consider withdrawing the report and starting over with a legally and scientifically valid approach. If these vulnerabilities are not corrected and the EPA rescinds the endangerment finding based on the Energy Department report, years of litigation are likely to slow the administration’s efforts.

Dr. H. Christopher Frey is currently a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. He has served on numerous scientific advisory committees, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (2004-2006), Science Advisory Board (2012-2018), and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (2008-2015). He was chair of CASAC from 2012 to 2015. He has served on study committees of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. He served at EPA from 2021 to 2022 as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy and from 2022 to 2024 as Assistant Administrator for Research and Development and Science Advisor. While in federal service he co-chaired the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment.

– ref. 4 laws that could stymie the Trump EPA’s plan to rescind the endangerment finding that underpins US climate policies – https://theconversation.com/4-laws-that-could-stymie-the-trump-epas-plan-to-rescind-the-endangerment-finding-that-underpins-us-climate-policies-262952