Federal health officials have raised safety concerns about mRNA vaccines, although they have provided no credible data on health risks.NurPhoto via Getty Images
Even before the FDA’s decision to reject the application, Moderna and other drugmakers were beginning to pare back investments in vaccines due to concerns about the approval process. As a law professor who studies vaccine policy, I believe the FDA’s abrupt shift is unlikely to assuage those concerns.
What happens now that the FDA is willing to review the application?
The FDA said it will review the vaccine for use by people age 50 to 64 under the standard review pathaway, which is how it evaluates most drugs.
In declining the application originally, the FDA claimed that Moderna did not conduct an “adequate and well-controlled” study because it had not compared patients receiving its vaccine with patients receiving what the agency claimed to be “the best-available standard of care.” The agency’s decision to review it now is effectively a reversal of that position, which was not based on any legal standard .
Moderna stock rebounded after the Food and Drug Administration reversed its decision.
Under this faster process, the law allows the FDA to consider different data than under a standard approval. Instead of looking at final results, a company can submit results that use a proxy measurement to reflect that a drug is likely to achieve its clinical goal.
This means that if the FDA approves Moderna’s vaccine for this older age group, the company will have to conduct additional studies on it afterward. What’s unusual, though, is that the agency typically suggests the use of the accelerated approval pathway much earlier in the process, not after a company submits its application.
Is the agency’s reversal likely to calm vaccine manufacturers?
Kennedy and other health officials have raised concerns about safety while providing no credible data on health risks, and have defunded research on their development.
By agreeing to review Moderna’s application for people age 50 to 64, the FDA is seemingly softening its stance on vaccines. But the agency’s unpredictable decisions – including the highly unusual way it invoked accelerated approval for Moderna’s vaccine – might not be enough to assuage manufacturers’ worries about the current state of regulatory uncertainty.
Ana Santos Rutschman 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.
A deadly avalanche buried a group of backcountry skiers and guides near Lake Tahoe in California’s Sierra Nevada as an intense storm brought heavy, wet snow to the region on Feb. 17, 2026. Six of the skiers were rescued, but eight others didn’t survive and another was missing. The region had been under an avalanche warning that was rated high, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center.
Avalanche deaths are rare inside the boundaries of ski resorts, but the risk rises in the backcountry – 30 backcountry avalanche deaths were reported in the U.S. during the 2022-23 season, 14 the following year, and 19 in 2024-25. Nathalie Vriend, a skier and physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies avalanches, explains what happens in an avalanche and techniques for surviving one.
What causes avalanches?
The behavior of an avalanche depends on the structure of the snowpack, but that’s only one ingredient. An avalanche requires all the wrong conditions at the wrong time.
The angle of the mountain slope is important. Slopes between 25 and 40 degrees run the greatest risk of avalanches. Those are also ideal for skiing, of course. If the slope is less than 25 degrees, there might be little slips, but the snow won’t pick up speed. If it’s over 40 degrees, the snow typically cannot accumulate, clearing away the avalanche risk.
Avalanche awareness for backcountry skiers.
Then there needs to be a trigger. A snowpack may be seemingly stable until a snowmobile or skier disturbs it enough that the snow starts to move. Strong winds or rock falls may also cause an avalanche. Blowing snow can create wind loading and build up into cornices, creating an overhang that can eventually fall and trigger an avalanche below.
What happens inside the snowpack during an avalanche?
Mountain snowpack isn’t uniform. Because it builds up over time, it is a snapshot of recent weather conditions and has both stable and weak layers.
When snow falls, it’s a fluffy crystal structure. But when the temperature rises and the snow starts to melt and then refreezes, it turns more granular.
That granular, icier snow is a weak layer. When a new snowfall dumps on top of it, the grains in the weak layer can shear, creating a surface for an avalanche to slide on. The weight of new snowpack can cause the entire face of a mountain to fall away almost instantaneously. As the avalanche picks up speed, more snow and debris are incorporated in the avalanche and it can become really big and violent.
In my lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I study small-scale laboratory avalanches. We use a technique called photoelasticity and create thin avalanches to reveal what’s going on inside the avalanche. We track photoelastic particles with a high-speed camera and can observe that particles bounce and collide really fast, within 1/1,000th of a second.
In a real avalanche, those violent collisions create a lot of heat through friction, which causes more melting. As the avalanche comes to a rest, this liquid can quickly refreeze again, locking the snowpack in place like concrete. People say “swim to the surface” in an avalanche, but you may not know whether the surface is up or down. If the avalanche is still moving and the granules haven’t frozen solid again, you might be able to move slightly, but it is really hard.
What can skiers do if they’re in an avalanche?
I’ve done fieldwork on real snow avalanches triggered intentionally in Switzerland. We were in a bunker in a valley, and they dropped explosives at the top of the mountain. Using radar, we could look inside the avalanche as it came toward us. It was easily going more than 110 miles per hour (50 meters per second).
Even if the avalanche is small, you can’t outski or outrun it easily. The big danger is when the snow is deep – you could be buried under several feet of snow. Basically, as the avalanche slows down, new snow keeps piling on top of you. People report this as being trapped in concrete without an ability to even move a limb. It must be a very frightening experience.
Backcountry skiers carry tools that can increase their chances of survival. Your best bet, though, is your peers – particularly in the backcountry, where emergency crews will take hours to arrive.
There are a few things you can do. First, carry a transceiver, which transmits a signal identifying your location. When you are caught in an avalanche, you are transmitting a signal. Your friends can switch their transceivers to the “receiving” mode and try to locate your beacon. It’s also important to have an avalanche probe and a shovel in the backcountry for when your friends do locate your position: The snow is like concrete, and it will be hard to extract you.
How is avalanche risk changing as winter temperatures rise?
It’s an important question, and it’s not as simple as warming temperatures mean less snow, so fewer avalanches. Instead, if mountains have more variation in temperatures, they may have more melting and refreezing phases during the winter, creating weaker snowpacks compared with historical records.
The historical conditions that communities have grown up around can change. In 2017, there was a big avalanche in Italy that took out an entire hotel. It was in an area where people didn’t expect an avalanche, based on historical data.
There are computer models that can calculate where avalanches are likely to occur. But when temperatures, snowfall and precipitation patterns change, you may not be able to truly understand cause and effect on natural hazards like snow avalanches.
Bernie Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, greets Jesse Jackson backstage at a 1988 Vermont rally where he endorsed Jackson’s presidential bid.AP Photo/Toby Talbot
Jackson’s campaigns energized a multiracial coalition that not only provided support for other late-20th-century Democratic politicians, including President Bill Clinton, but helped create an organizing template – a so-called Rainbow Coalition combining Black, Latino, working-class white and young voters – that continues to resonate in progressive politics today.
Vermont, where I teach political science, did not look like fertile ground for Jackson when he first ran for president. Then, as now, Vermont was one of the most homogeneous, predominantly white states in the country. But if Jackson seemed like an awkward fit for a mostly rural, lily-white state, he nonetheless saw possibilities there.
He campaigned in Vermont twice in 1984, buoyantly declaring in Montpelier, the state capital, “If I win Vermont, the nation will never be the same again.”
Jackson’s presidential ambitions coincided with a pivotal moment in Vermont politics: The state’s voting patterns were shifting left, with new residents arriving and changing the state’s culture and economy. In 1970, nearly 70% of Vermonters had been born there. By 1990, that figure had dropped by 10 percentage points.
The Vermont Rainbow Coalition, which was formed to support Jackson’s first campaign, organized a crucial constituency in a fluid time, establishing patterns that would persist for decades.
Setting the standard in Vermont
Jackson created a “People’s Platform” that would sound familiar to today’s progressives, calling for higher taxes on businesses, higher minimum wages and single-payer, universal health care.
In light of Jackson’s efforts, Vermont activists saw the potential for a durable statewide organization. Rather than disband the Vermont Rainbow Coalition after the 1984 primary, they kept the group going, endorsing candidates in campaigns for the legislature and statewide office in each of the next three election cycles. The coalition also endorsed Bernie Sanders’ failed bid for Congress in 1988.
Sanders served eight years as mayor of Burlington as an “independent socialist,” cultivating a core collection of local allies known as the Progressive Coalition who sought to wrest power away from establishment members of the city’s Board of Aldermen.
Sanders eventually went on to win election to the House as an independent in 1990, serving in the chamber until winning his Senate seat, also as an independent, in 2006. His presidential runs in 2016 and 2020 made him a prominent national figure and a leader among progressives.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unseated a member of the House Democratic leadership in a stunning 2018 primary upset in New York, had been a Sanders campaign organizer and remains his close ally. On Jan. 1, 2026, Sanders swore in Zohran Mamdani – like Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist – as mayor of New York City.
Sanders paid tribute to Jackson at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. “Jesse Jackson is one of the very most significant political leaders in this country in the last 100 years,” Sanders said. “Jesse’s contribution to modern history is not just bringing us together – it is bringing us together around a progressive agenda.”
Not just Vermont
In Vermont, Jackson performed surprisingly well in unlikely places – taking nearly 20% of the 1984 primary vote in working-class Bakersfield and Belvidere, for example.
Today’s Vermont Progressive Party, which emerged out of the old Vermont Progressive Coalition, is one of the most successful third parties in the nation, winning official “major party” status in the state shortly after its official founding in 2000. The party has elected candidates to the state legislature, city councils and even a few statewide offices, including that of lieutenant governor.
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exhorts the crowd at a 2019 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign rally in Long Island City, N.Y. Invision/Greg Allen via AP
Vermont was not alone in experiencing the catalyzing effect of Jackson’s presidential runs. Jackson had a significant mobilizing impact on Black voters nationwide. In Washington state, the Washington Rainbow Coalition started in Seattle and spread across the state between 1984 and 1996. New Jersey and Pennsylvania had their own successful and independent Rainbow Coalitions. In 2003, the Rainbow Coalition Party of Massachusetts joined the Green Party to become the Green Rainbow Party.
In my own research, I’ve investigated the durability of the “Jackson effect” in Vermont. There is no better test of what differentiates the Vermont Progressive Party from the state’s Democratic Party than the 2016 Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor, which pitted progressive David Zuckerman against two prominent, mainstream Democrats.
Zuckerman beat the Democrats most handily in towns that had voted the most heavily for Jesse Jackson in 1984, an effect that persisted even when controlling for population, partisanship and liberalism.
Many people would point to Sanders as the catalyst for Vermont’s continuing progressive movement. But Sanders and the progressives owe much to Jackson.
Bert Johnson 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.
People have long given up on the search for the Fountain of Youth, a mythical spring that could reverse aging. But for some scientists, the hunt has not ended – it’s just moved to a different place. These modern-day Ponce de Leóns are investigating whether gut microbes hold the secret to aging well.
The gut microbiome refers to the vast collection of microscopic organisms – bacteria, fungi and viruses – that largely inhabit the colon. These microbes aid in digestion and produce molecules that affect your physiologyand psychology. The composition of the microbiome is influenced by a combination of factors, including genetics, diet, the environment, medications and age.
People are most familiar with outward signs of aging, such as wrinkles and graying hair, but there are also microscopic changes taking place deep inside. The gut microbes of older people tend to be less diverse, with more bacteria that promote inflammation and other hallmarks of aging. Changes to the microbiome across age are so consistent that algorithms can reliably predict a person’s age based on their microbiome composition.
Researchers are studying the body’s hidden markers of biological age.
To confirm that the microbes of youth influence aging, scientists use a technique called fecal microbiota transplantation. This procedure involves obliterating a person’s current gut microbiome and replacing it with microbes harvested from a donor’s feces. Transplanting microbiota from a young mouse into an elderly mouse reverses age-associated inflammation in the gut, brain and eyes. Conversely, transplanting microbiota from an old mouse into a young one accelerates these aging parameters. Other studies suggest that microbiota from young mice alter metabolism in ways that reduce inflammation that accelerates aging.
The evidence that aging is linked with the microbiome is compelling. However, fecal transplantation is not without risk and is approved only as a last resort to treat severe C. difficile infections. These shortcomings have prompted researchers to search for safer and more refined ways to cultivate an age-friendly microbiome.
Diet and exercise may slow aging
Proper diet and exercise have long been tied to better aging and longevity. One way these lifestyle habits may be beneficial is through their influence on gut microbes.
What people eat – or fail to eat – has a demonstrable effect on their gut microbiomes. The standard American diet, enriched with ultraprocessed foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt and low in nutrients and fiber, depletes microbiomediversity within days. Moving from a non-Western country to the U.S. is also associated with loss of gut microbiome diversity, partly due to dietary changes.
Fiber functions as a prebiotic, a nondigestible food component that nourishes the microbiome. Gut bacteria process fiber into compounds such as short-chain fatty acids that promote better aging by improving metabolic, brain and immune function while reducing chronic inflammation. Good sources of prebiotics include most fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.
Certain foods, such as yogurt and kefir, or dietary supplements contain probiotics – living microbes that may benefit the gut microbiome. Research on probiotic foods and supplements is mixed, complicated by the variation in bacterial species and dosage in these products. The health benefits that different types of probiotics may confer is still under study.
Making healthy lifestyle changes is a noninvasive way to cultivate a youthful microbiome that may slow aging. Scientists are also exploring treatments to tailor the gut microbiome for better health outcomes.
The microbiome can also be modified with drugs, particularly antibiotics. A low-dose oral antibiotic can trigger gut bacteria to release factors that may promote good health and aging by, for example, strengthening the intestinal barrier or reducing inflammation. One such antibiotic, cephaloridine, extends the lifespan of roundworms and mice by triggering gut bacteria to make colanic acid, an anti-aging compound.
The negative public reaction to Operation Metro Surge – the violent immigration dragnet in Minnesota – was “MAGA’s Gettysburg,” wrote New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie on Jan. 28.
But Gen. George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac won the battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederates would fight on the defensive for the rest of the war.
Since early 2026, growing numbers of commentators have turned to the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 to make sense of America’s fractured political climate.
After a masked federal agent shot and killed a 37-year-old mother of three, Renée Good, in Minneapolis, novelist Thane Rosenbaum wondered whether the city might become a “new Antietam.” The battle of Antietam, fought on Sept. 17, 1862, remains the bloodiest day in all of American history, leaving more than 3,600 soldiers dead.
Later in January 2026, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speculated that ICE violence in the Twin Cities could spark a national conflict. “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” he asked an interviewer, alluding to the South Carolina harbor fortress where, in 1861, the opening shots of the Civil War were fired.
In response, defenders of Donald Trump, including CNN commentator Scott Jennings and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, compared Walz to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. On Fox News, Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher said: “News flash, Tim Walz. In this case, you’re the Confederacy,” accusing him of conspiring to defy federal immigration policy.
At a time of deepening national division, the recent spate of Civil War analogies should come as no surprise.
Preservation of the Union came at a heavy price. More than 700,000 people were dead, about 2% of the 1860 population, or a number roughly equivalent to the current population of the state of Maryland.
But the Civil War’s staggering death toll cannot fully explain the references to “Gettysburg” and “Jeff Davis” in media coverage of ICE operations in Minnesota and elsewhere.
As we argue in our book, “They Are Dead and Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America,” the impulse to connect the American Civil War to contemporary crises can be traced to the politics of memory, the ways interest groups, politicians and ordinary people shape the past to meet the needs of the present.
Likening Walz to Jefferson Davis or Minneapolis to Gettysburg or Fort Sumter are clear examples of how Americans appropriate the Civil War for our contemporary political needs.
Competing memories
In the Civil War’s aftermath, the conflict’s participants quickly crafted competing versions of the Civil War.
Yet the Union memory soon became subsumed by the dominance of the “Lost Cause,” an intentional and distorted narrative crafted by white Southerners. That version of the Civil War ignored slavery and celebrated Confederate soldiers in a war to defend states’ rights from federal tyranny.
By the early 1900s, Lost Cause ideology had taken root across the nation. The United Daughters of the Confederacy and other Southern apologists erected hundreds of Confederate monuments throughout the United States, and blockbuster movies like “The Birth of a Nation,” from 1915, and “Gone with the Wind,” from 1939, turned Lost Cause nostalgia into big-screen spectacle.
Over the past few decades, however, communities around the United States have made great strides to disentangle the Lost Cause from public memories of the Civil War.
After Dylann Roof massacred nine African American worshippers at Charleston’s Emmanuel AME Church in 2015, he was found to have espoused white supremacist ideas and posted a photo of the Confederate battle flag on his website. In the killings’ aftermath, cities across the South removed more than 300 Confederate flags, monuments and symbols from public view.
“The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity,” declared New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a 2017 speech about the removal of four Confederate statues in the city. “It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is a history we should never forget and one that we should never, ever again put on a pedestal to be revered.”
Homegrown analogy
In 1961, poet Robert Penn Warren famously observed, “Many clear and objective facts about America are best understood by reference to the Civil War.”
That remains the case today.
For many Americans, the Civil War is the prime example of the danger of allowing political division to spiral into organized violence.
Minnesota’s governor, Walz, could have used the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 or the bombing at Pearl Harbor in 1941 for his historical analogy, but the references to the start of the Spanish-American War or World War II would not have been as powerful. Using the Civil War as a reference point underscores the danger when Americans decide to abandon their shared history and values and engage in fratricidal war.
Many of the recent Civil War analogies do not hold up to scrutiny. The events going on in Minneapolis bear little to no resemblance to the years of tumult leading to the assault on Fort Sumter, and the violence on the streets of Minneapolis can hardly compare to the horrors on the fields along the Antietam Creek.
But that’s beside the point.
More than 160 years after the defeat of Confederate forces at Gettysburg, the Civil War continues to have an enduring hold on the American political consciousness – shaping the way we view the past and offering a vocabulary for understanding the political conflicts of the present.
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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jason Zenor, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, State University of New York Oswego
Donald Trump’s name has been added to the Kennedy Center, but the institution’s name change is not yet official.AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
In November 2025 the Trump administration announced a special park pass commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary that featured images of two presidents: George Washington and Donald Trump.
As a communication professor who studies the First Amendment, I was intrigued by the federal actions and the protests they’ve triggered.
Citizens certainly have the right to protest these decisions, like any government action. The First Amendment prevents the government from making laws that abridge freedom of speech.
But does the federal government itself have freedom of speech? And can a president put his name and image wherever he wants?
Free speech for government
The answer to the first question has already been answered. In a series of rulings, the Supreme Court has upheld the government speech doctrine, which allows the government as speaker to say whatever it wants.
Moreover, if the forum is governmental, the government may even be able to compel people to express its messages – for example, with public employee speech that is part of job duties. The 2006 Supreme Court decision establishing that principle involved a deputy district attorney who’d questioned the validity of a warrant, but the rule applies to other employees, such as teachers who have to offer instruction in state-mandated curricula.
National Park Service passes now feature the faces of George Washington and Donald Trump. Department of the Interior
The court’s decisions in government speech cases imply that if people do not like the government speech, they should change the government with their votes.
However, some scholars and advocates argue that this relatively new constitutional doctrine gives the government too much power to drown out other viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas.
In most instances, the government cannot compel speech or force citizens to express a certain message. Compelled speech is not allowed when the government is forcing a citizen to endorse an ideological message.
For example, the Supreme Court allowed a Jehovah’s Witness to cover the words “or Die” on his license plate, which included the New Hampshire state motto, “Live Free or Die.”
The First Amendment is not absolute, and some government regulations will infringe on speech.
The Trump administration has named money, monuments, military equipment and government programs after the president. AFP Photo/Saul Loeb via Getty Images
In such cases, courts have had to decipher whether the forum was purely governmental. To do so, they examine the history of the forum in which the contested speech takes place, who controls the forum, and the public perception of who controls it.
This brings us back to the question of Trump’s name and likeness. As a constitutional matter, the Trump administration can express itself as it sees fit under the government speech doctrine. But in some cases, the administration may be bound by statute or formal contracts, as with the legal battle over the naming of the Kennedy Center, which was named by an act of Congress. The lawsuit over the National Park passes claims that the administration is violating a federal law requiring that the winning entry in a public lands photo contest be used for the passes.
Still, I believe it would be difficult to win a lawsuit claiming that the new passes are a form of compelled speech, with bearers of the pass arguing they are being forced, in effect, to endorse Trump. Most people would likely see the park passes’ artwork as being controlled by the government and therefore a form of government expression, not a form of private expression.
Can people cover up Trump?
But the Trump administration may not be able to defend its policy of declaring passes null and void if the president’s image is covered by a sticker. Citizens protesting Trump’s appearance by covering up the president’s image is protected speech, in my view. The government’s action to void the passes is likely a violation of the First Amendment.
On the face of it, placing stickers on passes would appear to violate the long-standing Interior Department rule that passes are “void if altered.” Those regulations were content neutral and incidental to any particular message or cardholder.
However, the updated policy, voiding the pass if Trump’s image is covered or marred, is more suspect. The new rules seem to be a direct response to the protesters’ political speech and, as applied, primarily aim to affect these stickers and speakers.
The government will have the right to put Trump’s name and images on more government property in many cases, but most resulting political protests, in my view, will also be protected speech.
Jason Zenor 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.
American families are feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. In the past five years alone, the generation portion of the standard service residential electric bill in Columbus, Ohio, has increased by 110%. This is one data point in a national trend.
But new research from The Ohio State University’s Energy Markets and Policy Group, where I serve as principal investigator, provides new insights about another factor you were probably not thinking about – middlemen introduced by deregulation.
How deregulation brought middlemen instead of competition
Under the old system, a state regulatory commission set prices for all electricity services – generation, transmission and distribution – which were supplied by the same monopoly utility company. Each state commission was required by federal law to ensure that rates were “just and reasonable.” Under deregulation, that same commission rate-setting process still holds for transmission and distribution, but the generation part was split off.
Deregulation created competitive wholesale markets for generation, but price competition did not spread widely at the retail level. In states with active retail deregulation, there are two ways the retail generation price can be set. Consumers get to pick which one – buy from a marketer on the open market, or do nothing. Most people choose to do nothing.
Rather than introducing efficiency, this system of retail deregulation created a new complexity: middlemen marketers. In most cases, no matter which choice people make, it’s hard for them to understand how their electricity rates are set. That’s where our research comes in.
Door-to-door electricity sales efforts cause problems for residents.
Option A: The open market
Electricity customers in deregulated retail markets can choose a company that buys the electricity on their behalf. People who live in these states may be familiar with energy salespeople who come to their homes, approach them in a convenience store, or use telemarketers.
For example, people who live in the Cincinnati area can contract with one of more than 50 suppliers to buy electricity on their behalf from the wholesale market. Their monthly bill would still come from Duke Energy, a regulated distribution utility, and would still include regulated charges for distribution and transmission set by state and federal officials. But it would also include charges from an unregulated retail supplier, for the generation part of their bill – their electric supply.
Some locations also have community choice aggregation, in which their municipality participates in the open market on their behalf unless they opt out.
Our research has found that these markets are not working as intended.
Option B: Do nothing – default service
For people who choose not to shop on the open market, by doing nothing they remain on what is called the “standard offer” or “default service.” Sometimes it is also called “provider of last resort” service because it is not meant to be the best option.
For these people, state law generally requires each distribution utility to hold auctions or use a procurement process like a request for proposals to determine which middlemen companies get to be their supplier, and of course, at what price.
People in this category still buy from middleman marketers. But rather than choosing their own middleman, they get the middleman the utility company selects for them.
Two former FirstEnergy executives, Michael Dowling, center left, and Chuck Jones, right, listen to proceedings during their February 2026 trial on charges they bribed a state official to be able to keep electricity rates high. Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal via AP, Pool
Help for consumers usually comes after problems have arisen, rather than preventing them in the first place.
Our research team sought to determine whether, and how much, electricity consumers would save money if they used the supposedly competitive open market, rather than going with the default rate. To answer this question, we developed a detailed database of every daily retail choice offer filed by every supplier in all service territories in Ohio for a decade – which meant compiling millions of records.
We found that 72.1% of the open-market offers exceeded the utility’s default rate. In some years, there was not even one single cost-saving offer for the entire year, or longer. The vast majority of these supposedly competitive electricity prices were higher than customers would get by doing nothing. Taking the time to research the market and compare prices was often not worth consumers’ time.
Importantly, the study found that suppliers in the open market were not setting their prices based on market fundamentals – like the underlying wholesale price of electricity. Instead, they were setting prices based on the results of the utility’s default supply selection. In a competitive market, that is not supposed to happen.
In some of the default-option rate auctions, as few as five suppliers placed bids. In others, there were as many as 15 companies vying to provide default-option electricity. Our analysis found that in situations when the underlying costs of generating electricity were the same, default supply auctions with fewer bidders delivered significantly higher prices for consumers than auctions with more bidders.
The study included numerous statistical controls for other factors that could otherwise help explain the prices, including natural gas prices and market volatility. The number of bidders was the key factor. Having just three additional bidders could reduce consumers’ default-option rates by 18% to 23%. Nine additional bidders, the analysis found, could deliver savings of as much as 60%.
It’s important to note that Ohio’s process for setting default service rates is more robust than many other states. In some states, it is not uncommon for even fewer companies to bid. So Ohio’s situation is not actually a worst-case scenario for consumers. Rather, it’s probably better than many other states with deregulated electricity markets.
Putting it all together
A meter keeps track of how much electricity customers use – but the price is a separate question. AP Photo/Jenny Kane
The first study showed that the open market is not setting efficient retail rates and is not working as intended. Most of the offers made available to consumers are not worth their time, and the suppliers in those markets are not setting their prices based upon market fundamentals. Instead, these companies are taking their cues from the local distribution utility’s default supply auctions. That is not how deregulation was envisioned.
The second study showed that the process which sets the default supply rate is also not very competitive. Less competition means the middleman companies bidding in those auctions can bid, and win, higher prices – raising electric bills and increasing their profit margin.
Energy deregulation promised lower prices through competition. But instead, consumers got an army of middleman marketers. And, those middlemen have been taking their cues from a bidding process that often has too few participants to keep prices low.
Noah Dormady receives funding from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Energy (DOE).
Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, Clinical Assistant Professor of Education, Health and Behavior Studies, University of North Dakota
I spoke in January 2026 with 150 high school students about career options. After explaining my own career as a professor of education, health and behavior, I asked the students a simple question: Would you want to be a teacher?
“Why in the world would I want to be a teacher?” one female student said.
“My aunt is a teacher and she works all the time … no thanks,” a male student added.
Several students said it felt like teachers were doing everything: from teaching lessons and helping students through personal struggles to managing class disruptions and constantly adjusting to whatever else the day brought. Students also mentioned hearing teachers talk openly about low pay or feeling a lack of respect from students and others.
These students’ observations align with national trends. While nearly 20% of college freshmen said in 1970 that they were interested in a teaching career, less than 5% said the same in 2020, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
National analyses show that teaching has steadily lost ground in wage competitiveness compared with other college-educated professionals over the past few decades.
Teaching once centered primarily on academic instruction. Particularly through much of the 20th century, teachers’ roles were largely defined by planning lessons, instructing on different subjects and assessing student learning.
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified many of these responsibilities, as teachers navigated remote instruction and students’ heightened mental health needs.
Approximately 50% of all public school leaders reported in October 2024 that they feel their school is understaffed. And 20% of public school leaders reported teacher vacancies during that same time period.
In January 2022, shortly after the pandemic, more than 20% of public schools reported at least 5% of their teaching positions were vacant that month. Approximately 51% of schools reported that resignations were the cause of these vacancies.
A 2025 national teacher shortage overview estimates that roughly 1 in 8 teaching positions nationwide are either unfilled or staffed by someone not fully certified for the assignment, meaning a teacher working outside their licensed subject area or grade level, for example.
When positions are filled this way, the classroom will still have a teacher present, but not necessarily one formally prepared to teach a specific subject or group of students. This can result in greater reliance on substitutes or increased class sizes for remaining staff.
But as the U.S. industrialized in the late 1800s and early 1900s, higher-paying jobs in business and manufacturing drew many men away from classrooms.
For many women at the time, teaching offered one of the few respectable professional careers available. It provided steady income and a measure of independence when many other professions were closed to them.
Labor force participation for women expanded significantly during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, as legal and social barriers began to fall. Yet the pay and public standing of teaching does not seem to have risen at the same pace.
Today’s students are coming of age in a landscape where teaching competes with many other college-degree professions that may offer higher pay, more predictable hours or clearer career advancement.
College students are often weighing financial security, mental health and long-term sustainability as they imagine their future.
Stability is the key as students are evaluating teaching – not as a calling, but as a potential career within a competitive labor market.
Lee Ann Rawlins Williams 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.
Founded in 1988, Mary’s Cafe & Coin Laundry in Miami, Fla., has been owned by three generations of one family that immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba.Photo courtesy of the owners of Mary’s Cafe in Miami, Fla., CC BY-NC-ND
I’m a historian of business and culture who examines how enterprises shape and are shaped by the societies and historical contexts in which they operate. Since 2021 I have led the Gainesville Business History Project, a research initiative at the University of Florida that studies the long-term patterns of the town’s business history.
Nearby history
Our project takes a nearby history approach that recognizes that businesses around us, even small ones, are part of the historical record that we consumers also actively shape. Our team of 10 researchers has conducted in-depth interviews with more than 40 business owners and entrepreneurs in Florida.
In 2023, foreign-born Florida residents made up almost 50% of the workforce employed in pillars of the state’s economy, including agriculture, tourism and construction.
In 2025, one study found that 267,700 of these Florida immigrants – about 5% – were entrepreneurs.
Our interviews uncovered many stories that show how immigrant-founded businesses can grow into familiar institutions that define a place’s identity. These stories illustrate some of the ways immigrants contribute to their communities.
La Aurora Latin Market
The story of La Aurora, a Latin grocery store that has operated for nearly 25 years in Gainesville, demonstrates how businesses are culturally embedded within the community and how immigrant-owned businesses often are tied to long-term local networks.
Aurora Ynigo crossed the Mexico-U.S. border in the early 1990s. She went straight to Miami, where she met her husband, Peter. In the late 1990s they moved from Miami to Gainesville for Peter’s job. At the time there was limited access to Hispanic products in the university town with about 180,000 residents. So in 1999 the family decided to open a Latin store that Aurora would manage.
For years the couple and their parents would create a weekly shopping list, which included many items requested by clients and friends who had immigrated to Gainesville from Peru, Cuba or Colombia. Then they would drive 400 miles to Miami, where they would look for the items all over the city, especially in supermarkets there such as Sedano’s and Presidente. They would then drive back to Gainesville with fresh food in big coolers to fill the racks at their location on University Avenue.
After 27 years in business, La Aurora Latin Market on University Avenue has its own butcher counter, fresh produce and other items from across Latin America and the Caribbean. It also makes fresh-baked Latin American breads, pastries and cakes. And it has become a place where the Spanish-speaking community – a demographic that has grown considerably in the past 10 years – can reliably find familiar products.
Mary’s Cafe & Coin Laundry
For more than four decades, Mary’s Café and Laundry has operated along Miami’s now-central and busy 27th Avenue.
The business has remained in the same family across three generations. It traces back to Eumelia Morales Fernández, who immigrated to Miami from the town of Santa Clara, Cuba, in 1970. Like many immigrant women, she first worked as a seamstress. She then got a job in a shoe factory before buying a small supermarket with her husband on 32nd Avenue in Miami in 1988.
After purchasing the building where the cafe and laundromat still stand, they installed washing machines and dryers and opened a small cafeteria alongside the laundromat. They named the business Mary’s Cafe, after Eumelia’s daughter, who later ran the business before passing it on to her own daughter, Vicky, who currently manages it.
The current menu at Mary’s Cafe. Photo by the author, taken in 2025, CC BY-NC-ND
Mary created the menu, which has changed little since the cafe first opened. The cafe has its own kitchen for tostadas and pastelitos, serving coladas and cortaditos daily at this central Miami location. Everything continues to be made in-house.
The building also houses another small retail space, which is currently a watch repair business run by another member of the family. Before that, the space was home to a Chinese takeout owned by another Cuban family.
I was able to interview both Eumelia and Vicky. Vicky told me she has not changed much in the way she coordinates work and supplies at Mary’s. The biggest change she’s had to make is learning to use social media to promote the business.
16th Avenue Diner
Gilberto Argoytia Miranda owns the 16th Avenue Diner. The diner is an icon of Gainesville’s southern cuisine and has been in operation for more than 50 years.
Argoytia Miranda is the diner’s eighth owner – he purchased it in 2021. He had experience in the sector from when he lived in Mexico City, where he had operated food trucks since 2010.
He knew he wanted to be in the restaurant industry, but he didn’t immediately open a Mexican restaurant, despite the limited number of them in Gainesville. Instead, he studied the local market by working for various restaurants, including delivering food via DoorDash. This experience allowed him and his family to gain a deeper understanding of the Gainesville food scene.
The diner had to maintain its soul, as Argoytia Miranda calls it, for the regular clientele to keep coming. He and his family didn’t want to replace an eatery that carried local meaning and tradition. In fact, he recognizes this continuity as an asset, because the place remains recognizable.
The 16th Avenue Diner in Gainesville, Fla., has been a fixture in the town, even as ownership has changed hands over the years. Photo by the author, taken in November 2025, CC BY-NC-ND
Argoytia Miranda rarely changes the menu, because he understands that’s what people have liked for years. He does not see the need to reinvent the core of the restaurant, its Southern-style cooking and the Americana atmosphere.
Little by little, he told me in 2025, he intends to experiment with adding more Latino flavor to the menu. But new dishes will become part of the official offering only if customers enjoy them.
Paula de la Cruz-Fernández 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.
The Trump administration announced on Feb. 12, 2026, that it is ending Operation Metro Surge, its deployment of more than 3,000 federal immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding metro area. Federal officials say some agents will remain in the area and have vowed that similar immigration sweeps are coming soon to other U.S. cities.
Even before the Trump administration’s recent expansion of immigration enforcement, research has long shown that intensive immigration enforcement operations affect people’s use of health care, ability to access resources to stay healthy, and their mental health and social relationships. Notably, these findings all come from before the Trump administration’s most recent expansion of immigration enforcement. It is fair to assume that the impacts of these current operations will be even greater.
To some extent – particularly in Minneapolis, where mutual aid networks are especially strong – community response can mitigate some of these impacts. One of us (Nicole), as a resident of Minneapolis, witnessed both the unfolding crisis and a powerful community-driven public health response.
But these public health harms will take months or years to reverse, and they provide a troubling preview of what could happen in other cities.
Accessing health care
One of the most immediate public health impacts of intensive immigration enforcement is that it makes people hesitant to seek health care, especially if they belong to a nationality or racial group that is being targeted for immigration arrests. For example, studies of Hispanic adults have shown that they are less likely to get an annual checkup or visit their doctor – even if they are U.S. citizens – if they live in a region with more intensive immigration enforcement.
Research has also shown that Medicaid enrollment declines when federal immigration enforcement rises, even among qualifying U.S. citizens.
There is no question that Operation Metro Surge has deterred immigrant patients and their families in Minnesota from seeking medical care. According to one family medicine doctor, primary care visits are down more than 50%. Doctors and health care workers are reporting that patients are delaying needed care, potentially worsening chronic conditions, such as diabetes. Others report that pregnant women are missing prenatal visits and are requesting home births, even in cases where their health conditions would typically require a hospital birth.
Intense ICE activity in Minneapolis has made people hesitant to seek medical care.
Accessing food and housing
Immigration crackdowns also affect public health by restricting people’s access to the resources they need to stay healthy.
For example, income and employment are major predictors of health. But research suggests that overall employment and hourly wages fall in counties that begin collaborating with federal immigration enforcement – partly because people spend less money at stores, restaurants and other local businesses.
This phenomenon is playing out in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where thousands of immigrant families are staying home to avoid encounters with immigration enforcement. In January 2026, immigrant-owned businesses reported reduced traffic, with as many as 80% temporarily closing in some neighborhoods.
It is too soon to know the impact on evictions in Minneapolis, but early reports from tenant advocacy organizations indicate that they have seen an 82% increase in requests for help compared to early 2025.
Stress, hypervigilance and mental health
Among the most harmful and enduring impacts of immigration enforcement are the effects on mental health. Our research and that of others shows that people who encounter or have to protect themselves from immigration officials – staying inside to avoid immigration officials, seeing immigration officials in their neighborhood, knowing someone who was deported or being deported themselves – are at higher risk of psychological distress or poor overall health.
Especially for children who witnessed or experienced the arrest, detention or deportation of a family member, these effects can be severe, including separation anxiety and behavioral issues in the short term, as well as long-term risks of anxiety and depression.
Perhaps most painfully, experiencing family separations, missing work or avoiding public space leaves people socially isolated, resulting in fewer emotional resources to cope with these stresses as well as risks to health.
In Minnesota, many immigrant families are not only experiencing the social isolation of staying home from school and work but are also avoiding spaces that may have provided solace and support, such as places of worship. Church attendance has reportedly dropped by half in some congregations, and mosque attendance may be down too.
Amid these challenges, everyday Minnesotans – health care workers, neighbors, faith communities – have taken steps to bridge these gaps.
Trusted neighbors and community organizations ensure that people have rides to doctor visits. Some health care providers are expanding telehealth and home visits to make sure patients receive necessary care. Health care staff and unions are putting pressure on hospitals and health systems to implement policies that limit ICE’s access to patient areas.
Meanwhile, community members are delivering food and necessities to those who are sheltering in place or have lost income. Mutual aid campaigns are raising money to help with rent, organizers successfully campaigned for the city of Minneapolis to expand rental assistance, and more than 60 local organizations are petitioning the governor to enact a statewide eviction moratorium.
Mental health stressors and social isolation are more challenging to address, but some local mental health providers are expanding their reach, while teachers, neighbors and people of faith try to maintain connections with those who are sheltering at home.
This far-reaching response echoes what we have observed in our own research with other communities that have experienced immigration raids: ordinary people, with immigrant families at the forefront, essentially launching an informal disaster response, providing sanctuary and resources.
But immigration court cases drag on for months and years, as do long-term mental health impacts. Ruptured trust with government takes time to rebuild. That means that as ICE expands its presence across the U.S., the fallout may last for a long time to come.
Nicole L. Novak has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation. She is a volunteer with the Prairielands Freedom Fund and UNIDOS MN.
William D. Lopez 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.
