Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jennifer Raynor, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Marine protected areas cover more than 8% of the world’s oceans today, but they can get a bad rap as being protected on paper only.

While the name invokes safe havens for fish, whales and other sea life, these areas can be hard to monitor. High-profile violations, such as recent fishing fleet incursions near the Galapagos Islands and ships that “go dark” by turning off their tracking devices, have fueled concerns about just how much poaching is going undetected.

But some protected areas are successfully keeping illegal fishing out.

In a new global study using satellite technology that can track large ships even if they turn off their tracking systems, my colleagues and I found that marine protected areas where industrial fishing is fully banned are largely succeeding at preventing poaching.

What marine protected areas aim to save

Picture a sea turtle gliding by as striped butterfly fish weave through coral branches. Or the deep blue of the open ocean, where tuna flash like silver and seabirds wheel overhead.

These habitats, where fish and other marine life breed and feed, are the treasures that marine protected areas aim to protect.

A major threat to these ecosystems is industrial fishing.

These vessels can operate worldwide and stay at sea for years at a time with visits from refrigerated cargo ships that ferry their catch to port. China has an extensive global fleet of ships that operate as far away as the coast of South America and other regions.

The global industrial fishing fleet – nearly half a million vessels – hauls in about 100 million metric tons of seafood each year. That’s about a fivefold increase since 1950, though it has been close to flat for the past 30 years. Today, more than one-third of commercial fish species are overfished, exceeding what population growth can replenish.

When well designed and enforced, marine protected areas can help to restore fish populations and marine habitats. My previous work shows they can even benefit nearby fisheries because the fish spill over into surrounding areas.

That’s why expanding marine protected areas is a cornerstone of international conservation policy. Nearly every country has pledged to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.

Big promises – and big doubts

But what “protection” means can vary.

Some marine protected areas ban industrial fishing. These are the gold standard for conservation, and research shows they can be effective ways to increase the amount of sea life and diversity of species.

However, most marine protected areas don’t meet that standard. While governments report that more than 8% of the global ocean is protected, only about 3% is actually covered by industrial fishing bans. Many “protected” areas even allow bottom trawling, one of the most destructive fishing practices, although regulations are slowly changing.

The plentiful fish in better-protected areas can also attract poachers. In one high-profile case, a Chinese vessel was caught inside the Galápagos Marine Reserve with 300 tons of marine life, including 6,000 dead sharks, in 2017. This crew faced heavy fines and prison time. But how many others go unseen?

Shining a light on the ‘dark fleet’

Much of what the world knows about global industrial fishing comes from the automatic identification system, or AIS, which many ships are required to use. This system broadcasts their location every few seconds, primarily to reduce the risk of collisions at sea. Using artificial intelligence, researchers can analyze movement patterns in these messages to estimate when and where fishing is happening.

But AIS has blind spots. Captains can turn it off, tamper with data or avoid using it entirely. Coverage is also spotty in busy areas, such as Southeast Asia.

New satellite technologies are helping to see into those blind spots. Synthetic aperture radar can detect vessels even when they’re not transmitting AIS. It works by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring what bounces back. Paired with artificial intelligence, it reveals previously invisible activity.

Synthetic aperture radar still has limits – primarily difficulty detecting small boats and less frequent coverage than AIS – but it’s still a leap forward. In one study of coastal areas using both technologies, we found in about 75% of instances fishing vessels detected by synthetic aperture radar were not being tracked by AIS.

New global analysis shows what really happens

Two studies published in the journal Science on July 24, 2025, use these satellite datasets to track industrial fishing activity in marine protected areas.

Our study looked just at those marine protected areas where all industrial fishing is explicitly banned by law.

We combined AIS vessel tracking, synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery, official marine protected area rules, and implementation dates showing exactly when those bans took effect. The analysis covers nearly 1,400 marine protected areas spanning about 3 million square miles (7.9 million square kilometers) where industrial fishing is explicitly prohibited.

The results were striking:

• Most of these protected areas showed little to no signs of industrial fishing.

• We detected about five fishing vessels per 100,000 square kilometers on average in these areas, compared to 42 on average in unprotected coastal areas.

• 96% had less than one day per year of alleged illegal fishing effort.

The second study uses the same AIS and synthetic aperture radar data to examine a broader set of marine protected areas – including many that explicitly allow fishing. They document substantial fishing activity in these areas, with about eight times more detections than in the protected areas that ban industrial fishing.

Combined, these two studies lead to a clear conclusion: Marine protected areas with weak regulations see substantial industrial fishing, but where bans are in place, they’re largely respected.

We can’t tell whether these fishing bans are effective because they’re well enforced or simply because they were placed where little fishing happened anyway. Still, when violations do occur, this system offers a way for enforcement agencies to detect them.

A reason for optimism

These technological advances in vessel tracking have the potential to reshape marine law enforcement by significantly reducing the costs of monitoring.

Agencies such as national navies and coast guards no longer need to rely solely on costly physical patrols over huge areas. With tools such as the Global Fishing Watch map, which makes vessel tracking data freely available to the public, they can monitor activity remotely and focus patrol efforts where they’re needed most.

That can also have a deterrent effect. In Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park, evidence of illegal fishing activity decreased substantially after the rollout of satellite and radar-based vessel tracking. Similar efforts are strengthening enforcement in the Galapagos Islands and Mexico’s Revillagigedo National Park.

Beyond marine protected areas, these technologies also have the potential to support tracking a broad range of human activities, such as oil slicks and deep-sea mining, making companies more accountable in how they use the ocean.

Jennifer Raynor receives funding from National Geographic Pristine Seas. She is a trustee at Global Fishing Watch, one of the primary data providers for this study.

– ref. We tracked illegal fishing in marine protected areas – satellites and AI show most bans are respected, and could help enforce future ones – https://theconversation.com/we-tracked-illegal-fishing-in-marine-protected-areas-satellites-and-ai-show-most-bans-are-respected-and-could-help-enforce-future-ones-252800

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alex Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University – Newark

President Donald Trump signed the wide-ranging One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025. It focuses on cutting taxes, mainly for households that earn US$217,000 or more each year, as well as increasing funding for military and border security and revamping social programs.

Republicans tout it as providing “an economic lifeline for working families” and “laying a key cornerstone of America’s new golden age.”

Democrat lawmakers argue that, in reality, Trump’s act “steals from the poor to give to the ultra-rich.”

The act is estimated to increase the country’s debt by more than US$3 trillion over 10 years, while knocking more than 10 million people off Medicaid.

About 41.4 million adults in the U.S. receive Medicaid. And 49% of Medicaid recipients who voted in the 2024 election backed Trump.

While 94% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said in a May 2025 survey that they are worried Medicaid cuts will lead to more adults and children losing their health insurance, 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expressed concern about this, according to the KFF Health Tracking Poll.

Why, then, do Trump’s Make America Great Again supporters – especially those who will be hit hard by cuts to food assistance programs and health care, including hospitals – continue to support him even as he enacts policies that some think go against their interests? Indeed, over 78% of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters say they support the measure Trump signed.

As an anthropologist who studies MAGA and American political culture, I understand that many of the MAGA faithful believe that Trump is a once-in-a-lifetime leader who is catapulting the U.S. into a new golden age.

Sure, their reasoning goes, bumps in the road are expected. But they think that most of the criticism of Trump and this latest bill is ultimately fake news spread by radical leftists who have what some call Trump Derangement Syndrome, meaning anti-Trump hysteria.

Trump alone can fix it

In the eyes of the MAGA faithful, Trump is no ordinary politician. To them, he is a savior who can help ward off the threat of radical left socialism. They believe Trump’s proclamation: “I alone can fix it.”

Some see Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, as evidence he is divinely chosen to lead the country. Trump himself claimed during his second inaugural address, “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

As I have repeatedly observed firsthand at Trump rallies and MAGA gatherings and heard in my conversations with Trump supporters, many Trump supporters – even those whom Democrats contend will be hurt by the bill – see the bill as a key step to making America great again. Doing so will not be easy and may cause some pain.

But as Trump himself has noted about policies such as tariffs, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

‘Fake news!’

Even if the bill may cause some short-term pain, MAGA stalwarts contend, the apocalyptic claims of critics of massive health cuts are hoaxes spread by the radical left media. White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, for example, dubbed the Medicare cut claims “a big fake news story.”

This view, based on my research and observations, is unsurprising. Trump has been pushing the “fake news conspiracy” theory, which holds that the media is part of the deep state, since his first term. He even dubbed the press “the enemy of the people.”

Trump’s fake news rhetorical strategy has been successful in helping him maintain support. Trump supporters take it for granted that negative news coverage of the president is most likely fake news.

The Trump administration frequently invokes this conspiracy theory, including statements with headlines like “100 Days of HOAXES: Cutting Through the Fake News.”

The White House is taking the same approach with the new legislation. In June 2025, the Trump administration issued a statement stating “Myth vs. Fact: The One Big Beautiful Bill” and “MYTHBUSTER: The One Big Beautiful Bill Cuts Spending, Deficit – and That’s a Fact.”

There is already evidence that this depiction is resonating in places such as rural Nebraska, where many residents do not blame Trump for a health clinic that claims it is shutting down due to Medicaid cuts. “Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar,” said one woman of the clinic’s closure.

‘Crushing it’ in the Golden Age

More broadly, the MAGA faithful contend, the bill’s critics miss the bigger picture. For the most part, Trump has been “crushing it” while putting “‘W’ after ‘W’ on the board.”

From their perspective, Trump has assembled an all-star Cabinet team that is implementing key pillars of the MAGA agenda, such as restricting immigration, blocking unfair trade and avoiding drawn-out wars.

Trump supporters underscore the president’s accomplishments on immigration. Attempted unauthorized border crossings of migrants have plummeted in 2025, amid a rise in arrests of immigrants.

“Our message is clear,” stated Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, “criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States.”

Gas prices are also down. Trump has followed through on his pledge to supporters to purge what he calls the deep state, by downsizing or gutting entire government departments and agencies.

Trump has clamped down on woke universities that brainwash students, as MAGA supporters see it.

He withheld funding from the University of Pennsylvania until it agreed to ban transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams. Trump also cut $400 million in funding for Columbia University because the administration said it did not sufficiently protect Jewish students from harassment during Palestinian rights protests.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in July for his diplomatic work in the Middle East.

Recounting Trump’s foreign policy achievements, one conservative commentator gushed that Trump “promised we would win so much we’d get tired of winning. Instead, the wins keep coming – and America isn’t tired at all.”

Trumpism = Trump

Yet, Trump faces challenges.

A June 2025 KFF Health Tracking Poll found that support for the new legislation decreased when people were informed about its negative health care impact, for example.

Republicans could also face backlash in 2028 after the full impact of the act takes effect and people lose health insurance and other public benefits.

Regardless, I believe MAGA faithful will likely continue to support Trump.

They may argue over parts of his bill, the airstrikes on Iran or the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

But, in the end, they will circle the wagons around Trump for a simple reason. Trump created the MAGA movement. He dominates the Republican Party. And there is no Trumpism without Trump.

Alex Hinton receives receives funding from the Rutgers-Newark Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America, Rutgers Research Council, and Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

– ref. Why do MAGA faithful support Trump if his ‘big beautiful bill’ will likely hurt many of them? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-maga-faithful-support-trump-if-his-big-beautiful-bill-will-likely-hurt-many-of-them-260766

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jeffrey Basara, Professor of Meteorology, UMass Lowell

The National Weather Service has already issued more than 3,600 flash flood warnings across the United States in 2025, and that number is increasing as torrential downpours continue in late July. There’s a good chance the U.S. will exceed its yearly average of around 4,000 flash flood warnings soon.

For communities in Texas, New Mexico, West Virginia and New Jersey, the floods have been deadly. And many more states have seen flash flood damage in recent weeks, including New York, Oklahoma, Kansas, Vermont and Iowa.

What’s causing so much extreme rain and flooding?

I study extreme precipitation events along with the complex processes that lead to the devastating damage they cause.

Both the atmosphere and surface conditions play important roles in when and where flash floods occur and how destructive they become, and 2025 has seen some extremes, with large parts of the country east of the Rockies received at least 50% more precipitation than normal from mid-April through mid-July.

Excess water vapor, weaker jet stream

Flash floods are caused by excessive precipitation over short periods of time. When rain accumulates too fast for the local environment to absorb or reroute it, flooding ensues, and conditions can get dangerous fast.

During the warm season, intrusions of tropical air with excessive water vapor are common in the U.S., and they can result in intense downpours.

In addition, the jet stream and westerly winds – which move storm systems from west to east across the U.S. – tend to weaken during summer. As a result, the overall movement of thunderstorms and other precipitation-producing systems slows during the summer months, and storm systems can remain almost stationary over a location.

The combination of intense rainfall rates and extended precipitation increases the likelihood of flash flooding.

The surface rain falls on makes a difference, too

Local surface characteristics also play important roles in how flash floods develop and evolve.

When intense precipitation is combined with saturated soils, steep slopes, urban areas and sparse vegetation, runoff can quickly overwhelm local streams, rivers and drainage systems, leading to the rapid rise of water levels.

Because the characteristics of the surface can vary significantly along a stream or river, the timing and location of a heavy downpour pose unique risks for each local area.

What’s driving flash floods in 2025?

During the horrific flooding in Texas Hill Country on July 4, 2025, that killed more than 135 people, atmospheric water vapor in the region was at or near historic levels. The storm hit at the headwaters of the Guadalupe River, over streams that converge in the river valley.

As thunderstorms developed and remained nearly stationary over the region, they were fueled by the excessive atmospheric water vapor. That led to high rainfall rates. Hours of heavy rainfall early that morning sent the river rising quickly at a summer camp near Hunt, Texas, where more than two dozen girls and staff members died. Downstream at Kerrville, the river rose even faster, gaining more than 30 feet in 45 minutes.

Overall, a persistent atmospheric pattern in late spring and summer 2025 has included a shift of the jet stream farther to the south than normal and, along with lower atmospheric pressures, has supported excessive rainfall across the central and eastern U.S.

While the West Coast has experienced dry conditions in early summer 2025 due to a ridge of high pressure, the U.S. east of the Rockies has seen an active storm track with frontal boundaries and disturbances that produced thunderstorms and intense downpours across the region.

Warmer-than-normal ocean water can also boost rainfall. The Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean are source regions for atmospheric water vapor in the central and eastern U.S. In summer 2025, that water vapor has created extremely humid conditions, which have produced very high rainfall rates when storms develop.

The result has been flash floods in several states producing catastrophic destruction and loss of life.

Looking to the future

The U.S. has seen devastating flash floods throughout its history, but rising global temperatures today are increasing the risk of flooding.

As ocean and air temperatures rise, atmospheric water vapor increases. Higher ocean temperatures can produce more atmospheric water vapor through evaporation, and a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, fueling downpours. In some high-risk areas, meteorologists, aware of the risks, say they are becoming more proactive about warnings.

Currently, evidence shows that atmospheric water vapor is increasing in the overall global climate system as temperatures rise.

Jeffrey Basara receives funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and NOAA.

– ref. Why 2025 became the summer of flash flooding in America – https://theconversation.com/why-2025-became-the-summer-of-flash-flooding-in-america-261650

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Francisco Tijerina, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

In January 2022, Erick Martínez, also known as Turbulence Queen, introduced a guest on his YouTube channel: Ivan “Momo” Guzmán, with the stage name Burrita Burrona, a drag performer wearing a cartoonish donkey costume topped by a wig.

During their interview, Turbulence and Burrita shared stories, gossiped and threw shade at Mexican actors, newscasters and performers. Soon after, their careers took off.

Before Burrita’s first appearance, Turbulence’s YouTube channel had fewer than 5,000 subscribers. Now, after the rebranding of the show to include Burrita’s name, their channel has about 375,000. More than 2 million subscribe to them on TikTok – Turbulence, with 600,000 followers and 16 million likes; Burrita with 1.5 million followers and 28 million likes. Their “El Podcast del Momento” has more than 225,000 subscribers.

The two proved so popular that corporate sponsors started getting in on the action. Soriana, a large supermarket chain in Mexico, splashed their images on a line of cakes. Netflix Latin America had them hosting a series of videos promoting its new South Korean dramas. The media giant Televisa included Turbulence and Burrita as part of their comedic coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Over the past 3 ½ years, the YouTube show has added some new characters, including Burrita’s mom and an on-and-off love interest, a butch lesbian wolf. Along with the interviews, the characters do comedic cooking segments and sketches. Even in today’s fragmented and cluttered media environment, the program regularly gets around 250,000 views, with some episodes reaching more than 1 million.

While drag performers are not new in Mexico, Burrita is something of a novelty: a drag mascot. Although long a part of Mexico’s commercial culture – mascots promote everything from soccer teams to pharmacies and are a staple at children’s birthday parties – Burrita is the first to do it in drag.

Discrimination and violence

As a Mexican scholar who specializes in the study of gender and sexuality, I’m struck by how these LGBTQ+ characters have become enormously popular in what I consider a relatively conservative and deeply religious country. However, that too is changing: Today’s Mexico is sometimes called a conservative country with liberal laws. Still, in a country where about 5% of the population self-identify as LGBTQ+, the battle for inclusion – and more diverse representation of gender and sexuality – is far from over.

In 2023, conservative groups pressured the International Book Fair of Monterrey to cancel a public short-story reading by drag queens. In 2024, a social media influencer’s misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic remarks ran live on national television. Also in 2024, San Nicolás de los Garza, a city of more than 400,000 people, banned public performances by drag queens. Ironically, San Nicolás is in the state of Nuevo Leon, which has one of the largest LGBTQ+ populations in Mexico.

Indeed, national policies protecting the LGBTQ+ community don’t always apply equally; some states are more restrictive than others. For example, although Mexico’s Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, three states have yet to ratify it in their state constitutions.

In May 2025, Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography reported these findings: 60% of the LGBTQ+ community say they’ve been subjected to some form of violence. Nearly 30% have had suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide. Just over 37% say they experienced some form of discrimination during the past year. From 2020 to 2025, 25% said they were denied access to health care, education or social support. Hate crimes are on the rise, with 672 reported over a five-year period, including 141 in 2024, a significant jump from the 92 reported in 2023. The 2024 statistic includes 55 murders of transgender women.

Taking off the mask

Turbulence and Burrita’s swift success is impressive, but not all LGBTQ+ citizens in Mexico enjoy the same level of recognition and privilege. And as the fight for equal treatment continues, the country’s politics over the past decade has shifted. In 2018, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president. His successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and a close ally of López Obrador’s, was elected in 2024.

But although both López Obrador and Sheinbaum are more progressive than previous administrations, neither has been particularly vocal about their support for the LGBTQ+ community. For instance: Although Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female and Jewish president, mentioned her support for the LGBTQ+ community during her campaign, she has largely ignored LGBTQ+ issues since taking office.

Until recently, there were few openly LGBTQ+ people pitching products or appearing on television. But Guzmán, who’s the first mascot to perform in drag, is not hiding his sexuality, despite the costume. Rather, he can be read as a symbol of Mexico’s ongoing pursuit of equality. And perhaps his character’s visibility will allow more in the community to be able to shed their masks and come out.

Francisco Tijerina 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. As Mexico’s LGBTQ+ community battles for inclusion, two drag performers have become internet stars – with more than 2 million TikTok followers – https://theconversation.com/as-mexicos-lgbtq-community-battles-for-inclusion-two-drag-performers-have-become-internet-stars-with-more-than-2-million-tiktok-followers-241552

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Thomas S. Bremer, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Rhodes College

Nearly 5 million travelers come to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone National Park each year, most in the summer months. They come for the geysers, wildlife, scenery and recreational activities such as hiking, fishing and photography.

However, few realize that religion has been part of Yellowstone’s appeal throughout the park’s history. My 2025 book “Sacred Wonderland” documents how people have long found holiness in Yellowstone: how a landscape once sacred to Native Americans later inspired Christians and New Age communities alike.

Native reverence – and removal

Long before European Americans “discovered” the Yellowstone region in the 19th century, numerous Indigenous peoples were aware of its unique landscape – particularly geysers, hot springs and other hydrothermal wonders. Several tribal groups engaged in devotional practices long before it became a park. These included the Tukudika, or Sheep Eaters, a band of mountain Shoshone. They lived year-round within the boundaries of what would become the national park.

Anthropologists know relatively little about the specific beliefs that Native Americans held about Yellowstone during this era. However, it’s clear most of the Indigenous groups who frequented Yellowstone considered it, as historian Paul Schullery concludes, “a place of spiritual power, of communion with natural forces, a place that inspired reverence.”

After the Civil War, more Euro-Americans entered the region. In 1872, the U.S. government created Yellowstone as the first national park, setting a precedent for others in the United States and around the world.

Yellowstone and other U.S. national parks established in the 19th century were products of manifest destiny: the Christian idea that Americans had a divinely ordained right to expand their country across the continent. The nation’s westward expansion included turning supposedly wild, “uncivilized” areas into parks.

The park system’s creation, though, came at the cost of Indigenous communities. In Yellowstone, the Tukudika were forcibly removed in the 1870s to two reservations in Idaho and Wyoming, as anthropologists Peter Nabokov and Lawrence Loendorf discuss in their book “Restoring a Presence.”

Christian ministry

In addition to the concept of manifest destiny, Christians brought their own religious practices to Yellowstone National Park.

The U.S. Army was responsible for protecting and managing the park from 1886 to 1918. It operated from Fort Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern part of the park. The last building it erected at the fort was a chapel, which has been in continuous use as a worship space – mostly for Christian groups – since its completion in 1913.

One group that has used the chapel consistently since the 1950s is ACMNP, A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, an evangelical Protestant parachurch ministry founded in Yellowstone. Its volunteers conduct worship services and proselytize among employees and visitors.

ACMNP began as the brainchild of Presbyterian minister Warren Ost, who had worked as a bellhop at the Old Faithful Inn during summer breaks in seminary. Upon graduation, he formed the ministry, hoping to capitalize on the awe people experience in the parks to affirm believers’ faith and bring new souls to Christ.

ACMNP’s mission involves placing seminarians and other students in national parks as “worker-witnesses.” They work as paid employees in secular jobs and conduct religious activities after their regular working hours. Additionally, they are encouraged to talk about religion with their fellow workers on the job.

ACMNP experienced rapid growth in the 1950s and 1960s, boosted by support from National Park Service leadership. Cooperation included reduced-cost housing for their volunteers, and in some parks the superintendents or other high-level officials served on local ACMNP committees.

At its peak in the 1970s, ACMNP had nearly 300 volunteers working in over 50 locations. However, a federal lawsuit in the 1990s challenged its relationship with the government on the grounds of church-state separation and ended some of the privileges ACMNP had enjoyed. Not long after the legal action, Ost announced his retirement.

Although the organization has scaled back operations, the ministry in Yellowstone has experienced few changes. ACMNP volunteers continue to offer religious services to park employees and visitors throughout the summer.

Spiritual fortress

Another religious group has a very different interpretation of Yellowstone. The Church Universal and Triumphant, which had several thousand members at its height, was founded by Elizabeth Clare Prophet in the 1970s, based on the teachings of her late husband, Mark Prophet.

The Church Universal and Triumphant is an heir to the “I AM” movement, which flourished in the U.S. during the 1930s. Most prominent among I AM’s influences were theosophy, which promotes esoteric knowledge gleaned from Asian religious traditions as a universal wisdom underlying all religions; new thought, which advocates a mind-over-matter spirituality; and spiritualism, which involves communicating with spirits.

In the 1980s, Prophet’s followers relocated from California to Montana, where they purchased a large ranch adjacent to Yellowstone National Park’s northwest boundary. With them, they brought an eclectic New Age theology that combines elements of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism with belief in “ascended masters,” spiritual beings who guide the church. The group’s tradition teaches that beneath Yellowstone are two underground caverns, hidden from human view, that contain a cache of sacred stones with spiritual powers.

The Church Universal and Triumphant gained attention in the ‘90s when its believers in Montana built underground bunkers. Members believed that their ascended masters had predicted a nuclear war and had instructed the community to prepare to survive underground. When the prophecy of a nuclear attack did not materialize, many members became disillusioned.

The group struggled to rebuild its reputation and establish goodwill with Montana neighbors, including the National Park Service. Elizabeth Clare Prophet retired in 1999, and since then the church has concentrated more on its publishing and educational enterprises. However, a core community of the faithful still live and worship on their Royal Teton Ranch adjacent to Yellowstone.

Although the community teaches that its Montana ranch is a sacred location of the ascended masters, followers’ holiest place in the Western Hemisphere is roughly 35 miles south of Yellowstone, in Grand Teton National Park. They believe humanity began at Grand Teton Mountain and that the faithful will find their destiny there.

Accordingly, members believe that Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks are brimming with spiritual powers, sacred sources of light and energy for the entire world.

In my conversations with people in the park, I found that very few knew anything about Yellowstone’s religious history at all – especially Native American practices. The ongoing practices of religious communities in the park remain invisible to nearly all visitors. Still, many vacationers interpret Yellowstone’s wonders as evidence of God’s handiwork.

Thomas S. Bremer received funding in the past to conduct historical research for the National Park Service at Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois.

– ref. Yellowstone has been a ‘sacred wonderland’ of spiritual power and religious activity for centuries – and for different faith groups – https://theconversation.com/yellowstone-has-been-a-sacred-wonderland-of-spiritual-power-and-religious-activity-for-centuries-and-for-different-faith-groups-261045

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Hatim Sharif, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Texas Hill Country is known for its landscapes, where shallow rivers wind among hills and through rugged valleys. That geography also makes it one of the deadliest places in the U.S. for flash flooding.

In the early hours of July 4, 2025, a flash flood swept through an area of Hill Country dotted with summer camps and small towns about 70 miles northwest of San Antonio. More than 135 people died in the flooding. The majority of them were in Kerr County, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at one summer camp, Camp Mystic. Dozens more people were still unaccounted for a week later.

The flooding began with a heavy downpour, with more than 10 inches of rain in some areas, that sent water sheeting off the hillsides and into creeks. The creeks poured into the Guadalupe River.

A river gauge at Hunt, Texas, near Camp Mystic, showed how quickly the river flooded: Around 3 a.m. on July 4, the Guadalupe River was rising about 1 foot every 5 minutes at the gauge, National Weather Service data shows. By 4:30 a.m., it had risen more than 20 feet. As the water moved downstream, it reached Kerrville, where the river rose even faster.

Flood expert Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist and civil engineer at the University of Texas at San Antonio, explains what makes this part of the country, known as Flash Flood Alley, so dangerous.

What makes Hill Country so prone to flooding?

Texas as a whole leads the nation in flood deaths, and by a wide margin. A colleague and I analyzed data from 1959 to 2019 and found 1,069 people had died in flooding in Texas over those six decades. The next highest total was in Louisiana, with 693.

Many of those flood deaths have been in Hill County. It’s part of an area known as Flash Flood Alley, a crescent of land that curves from near Dallas down to San Antonio and then westward.

The hills are steep, and the water moves quickly when it floods. This is a semi-arid area with soils that don’t soak up much water, so the water sheets off quickly and the shallow creeks can rise fast.

When those creeks converge on a river, they can create a surge of water that wipes out homes and washes away cars and, unfortunately, anyone in its path.

Hill Country has seen some devastating flash floods. In 1987, heavy rain in western Kerr County quickly flooded the Guadalupe River, triggering a flash flood similar to the one in 2025. Ten teenagers being evacuated from a camp died in the rushing water.

San Antonio, at the eastern edge of Hill Country, was hit with a flash flood on June 12, 2025, that killed 13 people whose cars were swept away by high water from a fast-flooding creek near an interstate ramp in the early morning.

Why does the region get such strong downpours?

One reason Hill Country gets powerful downpours is the Balcones Escarpment.

The escarpment is a line of cliffs and steep hills created by a geologic fault. When warm air from the Gulf rushes up the escarpment, it condenses and can dump a lot of moisture. That water flows down the hills quickly, from many different directions, filling streams and rivers below.

As temperature rise, the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, increasing the downpour and flood risk.

The same effect can contribute to flash flooding in San Antonio, where the large amount of paved land and lack of updated drainage to control runoff adds to the risk.

What can be done to improve flash flood safety?

First, it’s important for people to understand why flash flooding happens and just how fast the water can rise and flow. In many arid areas, dry or shallow creeks can quickly fill up with fast-moving water and become deadly. So people should be aware of the risks and pay attention to the weather.

Improving flood forecasting, with more detailed models of the physics and water velocity at different locations, can also help.

Probabilistic forecasting, for example, can provide a range of rainfall scenarios, enabling authorities to prepare for worst-case scenarios. A scientific framework linking rainfall forecasts to the local impacts, such as streamflow, flood depth and water velocity, could also help decision-makers implement timely evacuations or road closures.

Education is particularly essential for drivers. One to two feet of moving water can wash away a car. People may think their trucks and SUVs can go through anything, but fast-moving water can flip a truck and carry it away.

Officials can also do more to barricade roads when the flood risk is high to prevent people from driving into harm’s way. We found that 58% of the flood deaths in Texas over the past six decades involved vehicles. The storm on June 12 in San Antonio was an example. It was early morning, and drivers had poor visibility. The cars were hit by fast-rising floodwater from an adjacent creek.

This article, originally published July 5, 2025, has been updated with the death toll rising.

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

– ref. Why Texas Hill Country, where a devastating flood killed more than 135 people, is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding – https://theconversation.com/why-texas-hill-country-where-a-devastating-flood-killed-more-than-135-people-is-one-of-the-deadliest-places-in-the-us-for-flash-flooding-260555

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

Something unusual is happening in U.S. immigration courts. Government lawyers are refusing to give their names during public hearings.

In June 2025, Immigration Judge ShaSha Xu in New York City reportedly told lawyers in her courtroom: “We’re not really doing names publicly.” Only the government lawyers’ names were hidden – the immigrants’ attorneys had to give their names as usual. Xu cited privacy concerns, saying, “Things lately have changed.”

When one immigration lawyer objected that the court record would be incomplete without the government attorney’s name, Xu reportedly refused to provide it. In another case, New York immigration Judge James McCarthy in July referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, attorney as merely “Department” throughout the hearing.

New York immigration Judge Shirley Lazare-Raphael told The Intercept that some ICE attorneys believe it is “dangerous to state their names publicly.” This follows a broader pattern of ICE agents wearing masks during arrests to hide their identities.

This secrecy violates a fundamental principle that has protected Americans for centuries: open courts. Here’s how those courts operate and why the principle governing them matters.

‘Presumption of openness’

The U.S. legal system is built on openness, with multiple layers of legal protection that guarantee public access to court proceedings.

This tradition of open courts developed as a direct rejection of secret judicial proceedings that had been used to abuse power in England. The notorious Star Chamber operated in secret from the 15th to 17th centuries, initially trying people “too powerful to be brought before ordinary common-law courts.”

But the Star Chamber eventually became a tool of oppression, using torture to obtain confessions and punishing jurors who ruled against the Crown. Parliament abolished it in 1641 after widespread abuses.

By the time American colonial courts were established, the reaction against the Star Chamber had already shaped English legal thinking toward openness. American courts adopted this principle of transparency from the beginning, rejecting the secretive proceedings that had enabled abuse.

Today, the term “star chamber” refers to any secret court proceeding that seems grossly unfair or is used to persecute individuals.

In the U.S., courts have repeatedly emphasized that “justice faces its gravest threat when courts dispense it secretly.” The First Amendment gives the public a right to observe judicial proceedings. The Supreme Court has ruled that “a presumption of openness inheres in the very nature of a criminal trial under our system of justice.”

Every federal appeals court has recognized that this constitutional right extends to civil cases too, with some exceptions such as protecting “the parties’ privacy, confidential business information, or trade secrets.” Federal court rules require that trials be “conducted in open court” and that witness testimony be “taken in open court unless otherwise provided.”

Many state constitutions also guarantee open courts – such as Oregon’s mandate that “no court shall be secret.”

While there’s no explicit law requiring attorneys to be publicly named, there’s also no policy allowing their names to be kept secret. The presumption is always toward openness.

In response to these recent developments, law professor Elissa Steglich said that she’d “never heard of someone in open court not being identified,” and that failing to identify an attorney could impair accountability “if there are unethical or professional concerns.”

Rules for anonymity

Courts sometimes allow anonymity, but only in specific circumstances.

Juries can be anonymous when there’s “substantial danger of harm or undue influence,” as legal expert Michael Crowell writes – like in high-profile organized crime cases or when defendants have tried to intimidate witnesses before. Even then, the lawyers still know the jurors’ names.

Similarly, parties to a lawsuit can sometimes use pseudonyms like “Jane Doe” when the case involves highly sensitive matters such as sexual abuse, or when there’s a real risk of physical retaliation.

But these rare exceptions require careful court review.

What’s happening with ICE attorneys is different. There’s no formal court ruling allowing it, no specific safety findings and no established legal process.

Immigration courts have fewer protections

Immigration courts operate differently from regular federal courts. They are so-called “administrative courts” that are part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

These courts decide claims involving an individual’s right to stay in the U.S., either when the government seeks to remove someone from the country for violating immigration law or when an individual seeks to stay in the country through the asylum process.

Immigration judges lack the lifetime job protections that regular federal judges have. As executive branch government employees, they can be hired and fired, just like other Department of Justice employees.

People in immigration court also have fewer procedural protections than criminal defendants. They have no right to court-appointed counsel and must represent themselves unless they can afford to hire an attorney. The majority of immigrants appear without an attorney. Outcomes are better for those who can afford to hire counsel.

Immigration court records are also less accessible to the public than other federal court proceedings.

For years, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the nation’s highest immigration court, made less than 1% of its opinions publicly available. A federal court ruled that public disclosure was required; the Board of Immigration Appeals now posts its decisions online.

However, lower immigration court decisions are rarely made public.

Because immigration courts operate with less oversight than regular federal courts, public observation becomes more critical.

Open courts aren’t just about legal procedure – they’re about democracy itself. When the public can observe how justice is administered, it builds confidence that the system is fair.

Court watching protects transparency

Court watching has become an important way for citizens to ensure due process is honored, especially in immigration cases.

Observers can monitor whether proper legal procedures are being followed. They can watch for signs that attorneys are prepared, treating people respectfully and following court rules – regardless of whether those attorneys identify themselves.

Observers help track trends such as lack of legal representation, language barriers or procedural unfairness that can inform advocacy for reforms. This kind of public oversight is especially important in immigration court, where people often don’t have lawyers and may not understand their rights.

When community members bear witness to these proceedings, it helps ensure the system operates fairly and transparently.

Professional ethics and accountability

As a law professor who runs a law school’s Center for Professional Ethics, I can say that while there’s no specific law forcing ICE attorneys to identify themselves, they are still bound by rules of professional conduct that require accountability and transparency.

State bar associations have clear standards about attorney conduct in court proceedings. The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct emphasize that lawyers are “officers of the legal system” with duties to uphold its integrity.

Immigration judges, despite being government employees rather than lifetime-tenured federal judges, are also bound by judicial conduct codes that require them to uphold public confidence in the justice system. When judges allow or encourage anonymity without formal procedures or safety findings, they risk violating these ethical obligations.

Bar associations can investigate professional conduct violations and impose sanctions ranging from reprimands to suspension or disbarment. While enforcement against federal government lawyers has historically been uncommon, sustained documentation by court observers can provide the evidence needed for formal complaints.

While government attorneys, judges and other court personnel may face real safety concerns, hiding their identities in open court is unprecedented and breaks with centuries of legal tradition that requires accountability and transparency in our justice system.

As pressure mounts to process immigration cases quickly, courts are ethically and legally bound to ensure that speed doesn’t come at the expense of fundamental fairness and transparency.

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

– ref. Immigration courts hiding the names of ICE lawyers goes against centuries of precedent and legal ethics requiring transparency in courts – https://theconversation.com/immigration-courts-hiding-the-names-of-ice-lawyers-goes-against-centuries-of-precedent-and-legal-ethics-requiring-transparency-in-courts-261452

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Güneş Murat Tezcür, Professor and Director of the School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University

In July 2025, clashes between the Druze religious minority and Sunni Arabs backed by government-affiliated forces led to hundreds of deaths in Sweida province in southern Syria. Israel later launched dozens of airstrikes in support of the Druze.

This eruption of violence was an eerie reminder of what had unfolded in March 2025 when supporters of the fallen regime led by Bashar Assad, an Alawite, targeted security units. In retaliation, militias affiliated with the newly formed government in Damascus carried out indiscriminate killings of Alawites.

While exact figures remain difficult to verify, more than 1,300 individuals, most of them Alawites, lost their lives. In some cases, entire families were summarily executed.

Although the Syrian government promised an investigation into the atrocities, home invasions, kidnappings of Alawite women and extrajudicial executions of Alawite men continue.

The violence in Sweida also bore a sectarian dimension, pitting members of a religious minority against armed groups aligned with the country’s Sunni majority.

A key difference, however, involved the active Israeli support for the Druze and the U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire.

Post-Assad Syria has seen promising developments, including the lifting of international sanctions, a resurgence of civil society and the end of diplomatic isolation. There was even a limited rapprochement with the main Kurdish political party controlling northeastern Syria.

The persistent violence targeting the Alawites and, to a more limited extent, the Druze, starkly contrasts with these trends. As a scholar of religious minorities and the Middle East, I argue that the current political situation reflects their historical persecution and marginalization.

History of the Alawites

The Alawites emerged as a distinct religious community in the 10th century in the region of the Latakia coastal mountains, which today make up northwestern Syria.

Although their beliefs have some commonalities with Shiite Islam, the Alawites maintain their own unique religious leadership and rituals. Under the Ottoman regime in the late 19th century, they benefited from reforms such as the expansion of educational opportunities and economic modernization, while gaining geographical and social mobility.

After Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar, came to power in a coup in 1970, he drew upon his Alawite base to reinforce his regime. Consequently, Alawites became disproportionately represented in the officer corps and intelligence services.

Prior to the civil war, which began in 2011, their population was estimated at around 2 million, constituting roughly 10% of Syria’s population. During the civil war, Alawite young men fighting for the regime suffered heavy casualties. However, most Alawites remained in Syria, while Sunni Arabs and Kurds were disproportionately displaced or became refugees.

Among Syria’s minorities, two key factors make the Alawites most vulnerable to mass violence in post-Assad Syria. The first factor is that, like the Druze, Alawites have their own distinct beliefs that deviate from Sunni Islam. Their religious practices and teachings are often described as “esoteric” and remain mostly inaccessible to outsiders.

In my 2024 book “Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies,” I categorize the Alawites and Druze in Syria alongside Yezidis in Iraq, Alevis in Turkey and Baha’is in Iran as “liminal minorities” – religious groups subject to deep-seated stigmas transmitted across generations.

These groups are often treated as heretics who split from Islam and whose beliefs and rituals are deemed beyond the pale of acceptance. For instance, according to Alawite beliefs, Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, is a divine manifestation of God, which challenges the idea of strict monotheism central to Sunni Islam.

From the perspective of Sunni orthodoxy, these groups’ beliefs have been a source of suspicion and disdain. A series of fatwas by prominent Sunni clerics from the 14th to the 19th century declared Alawites heretics.

Resentment against the Alawites

The second factor contributing to the Alawites’ vulnerability is the widespread perception that they were the main beneficiaries of the Assad regime, which engaged in mass murder against its own citizens. Although power remained narrowly concentrated under Assad, many Alawites occupied key positions in the security apparatus as well as the government.

In today’s political landscape where the central government remains weak and its control over various armed groups is limited, religious stigmatization and political resentment create fertile ground for mass violence targeting the Alawites.

The massacres of March 2025 were accompanied by sectarian hate speech, including open calls for the extermination of the Alawites, both in the streets and on social media.

While many Sunni Muslims in Syria also perceive the Druze as heretics, they maintained a greater degree of distance from the Assad regime and were less integrated into its security apparatus.

Nonetheless, in recent months the situation deteriorated rapidly in the Druze heartland. The Druze militias and local Bedouin tribes engaged in heavy fighting in July 2025. Unlike the Alawites, the Druze received direct military assistance from Israel, which has its small but influential Druze population. This further complicates peaceful coexistence among religious groups in post-Assad Syria.

A sober future

Sunni Arab identity is central to the newly formed government in Damascus, which can come at the expense of religious and ethnic pluralism. However, it has incentives to rein in arbitrary violence against the Alawites and Druze. Projecting itself as a source of order and national unity helps the government internationally, both diplomatically and economically.

Internally, however, the new government remains fractured and lacks effective control over vast swaths of territory. While it pays lip service to transitional justice, it is also cautious about being perceived as overly lenient toward individuals associated with the Assad regime and its crimes. Meanwhile, Alawite and Druze demands for regional autonomy continue to stoke popular Sunni resentments and risk triggering further cycles of instability and violence.

I believe that in a post-Assad Syria defined by fractured governance and episodic retribution, the Alawites as well as Druze are likely to face deepening marginalization.

Güneş Murat Tezcür 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. Understanding the violence against Alawites and Druze in Syria after Assad – https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-violence-against-alawites-and-druze-in-syria-after-assad-255292

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andrej Prša, Professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Villanova University

Stars are the fundamental building blocks of our universe. Most stars host planets, like our Sun hosts our solar system, and if you look more broadly, groups of stars make up huge structures such as clusters and galaxies. So before astrophysicists can attempt to understand these large-scale structures, we first need to understand basic properties of stars, such as their mass, radius and temperature.

But measuring these basic properties has proved exceedingly difficult. This is because stars are quite literally at astronomical distances. If our Sun were a basketball on the East Coast of the U.S., then the closest star, Proxima, would be an orange in Hawaii. Even the world’s largest telescopes cannot resolve an orange in Hawaii. Measuring radii and masses of stars appears to be out of scientists’ reach.

Enter binary stars. Binaries are systems of two stars revolving around a mutual center of mass. Their motion is governed by Kepler’s harmonic law, which connects three important quantities: the sizes of each orbit, the time it takes for them to orbit, called the orbital period, and the total mass of the system.

I’m an astronomer, and my research team has been working on advancing our theoretical understanding and modeling approaches to binary stars and multiple stellar systems. For the past two decades we’ve also been pioneering the use of artificial intelligence in interpreting observations of these cornerstone celestial objects.

Measuring stellar masses

Astronomers can measure orbital size and period of a binary system easily enough from observations, so with those two pieces they can calculate the total mass of the system. Kepler’s harmonic law acts as a scale to weigh celestial bodies.

Think of a playground seesaw. If the two kids weigh about the same, they’ll have to sit at about the same distance from the midpoint. If, however, one child is bigger, he or she will have to sit closer, and the smaller kid farther from the midpoint.

It’s the same with stars: The more massive the star in a binary pair, the closer to the center it is and the slower it revolves about the center. When astronomers measure the speeds at which the stars move, they can also tell how large the stars’ orbits are, and as a result, what they must weigh.

Measuring stellar radii

Kepler’s harmonic law, unfortunately, tells astronomers nothing about the radii of stars. For those, astronomers rely on another serendipitous feature of Mother Nature.

Binary star orbits are oriented randomly. Sometimes, it happens that a telescope’s line of sight aligns with the plane a binary star system orbits on. This fortuitous alignment means the stars eclipse one another as they revolve about the center. The shapes of these eclipses allow astronomers to find out the stars’ radii using straightforward geometry. These systems are called eclipsing binary stars.

More than half of all Sun-like stars are found in binaries, and eclipsing binaries account for about 1% to 2% of all stars. That may sound low, but the universe is vast, so there are lots and lots of eclipsing systems out there – hundreds of millions in our galaxy alone.

By observing eclipsing binaries, astronomers can measure not only the masses and radii of stars but also how hot and how bright they are.

Complex problems require complex computing

Even with eclipsing binaries, measuring the properties of stars is no easy task. Stars are deformed as they rotate and pull on each other in a binary system. They interact, they irradiate one another, they can have spots and magnetic fields, and they can be tilted this way or that.

To study them, astronomers use complex models that have many knobs and switches. As an input, the models take parameters – for example, a star’s shape and size, its orbital properties, or how much light it emits – to predict how an observer would see such an eclipsing binary system.

Computer models take time. Computing model predictions typically takes a few minutes. To be sure that we can trust them, we need to try lots of parameter combinations – typically tens of millions.

This many combinations requires hundreds of millions of minutes of compute time, just to determine basic properties of stars. That amounts to over 200 years of computer time.

Computers linked in a cluster can compute faster, but even using a computer cluster, it takes three or more weeks to “solve,” or determine all the parameters for, a single binary. This challenge explains why there are only about 300 stars for which astronomers have accurate measurements of their fundamental parameters.

The models used to solve these systems have already been heavily optimized and can’t go much faster than they already do. So, researchers need an entirely new approach to reducing computing time.

Using deep learning

One solution my research team has explored involves deep-learning neural networks. The basic idea is simple: We wanted to replace a computationally expensive physical model with a much faster AI-based model.

First, we computed a huge database of predictions about a hypothetical binary star – using the features that astronomers can readily observe – where we varied the hypothetical binary star’s properties. We are talking hundreds of millions of parameter combinations. Then, we compared these results to the actual observations to see which ones best match up. AI and neural networks are ideally suited for this task.

In a nutshell, neural networks are mappings. They map a certain known input to a given output. In our case, they map the properties of eclipsing binaries to the expected predictions. Neural networks emulate the model of a binary but without having to account for all the complexity of the physical model.

We train the neural network by showing it each prediction from our database, along with the set of properties used to generate it. Once fully trained, the neural network will be able to accurately predict what astronomers should observe from the given properties of a binary system.

Compared to a few minutes of runtime for the physical model, a neural network uses artificial intelligence to get the same result within a tiny fraction of a second.

Reaping the benefits

A tiny fraction of a second works out to about a millionfold runtime reduction. This brings the time down from weeks on a supercomputer to mere minutes on a single laptop. It also means that we can analyze hundreds of thousands of binary systems in a couple of weeks on a computer cluster.

This reduction means we can obtain fundamental properties – stellar masses, radii, temperatures and luminosities – for every eclipsing binary star ever observed within a month or two. The big challenge remaining is to show that AI results really give the same results as the physical model.

This task is the crux of my team’s new paper. In it we’ve shown that, indeed, the AI-driven model yields the same results as the physical model across over 99% of parameter combinations. This result means the AI’s performance is robust. Our next step? Deploy the AI on all observed eclipsing binaries.

Best of all? While we applied this methodology to binaries, the basic principle applies to any complex physical model out there. Similar AI models are already speeding up many real-world applications, from weather forecasting to stock market analysis.

Andrej Prša receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

– ref. Binary star systems are complex astronomical objects − a new AI approach could pin down their properties quickly – https://theconversation.com/binary-star-systems-are-complex-astronomical-objects-a-new-ai-approach-could-pin-down-their-properties-quickly-253387

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Alex H. Poole, Associate Professor of Information Science, Drexel University

Carla Hayden, the 14th librarian of Congress, who has held the position since 2016, received an unexpected email on May 8, 2025.

“Carla, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” wrote Trent Morse, deputy director of presidential personnel at the White House.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later explained that Hayden, who was the first woman, Black person and professionally trained librarian to oversee the Library of Congress, had done “quite concerning things,” on the job, including “putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Democratic politicians sharply criticized Hayden’s termination, saying the firing was unjust. It was actually about Trump punishing civil servants “who don’t bend to his every will,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said.

An information science scholar, I have written extensively about the history of libraries and archives, including the Library of Congress. To fully understand the role Hayden played for the past nine years, I think it is important to understand what the Library of Congress does, and the overlooked and underappreciated role it has played in American life.

The Library of Congress’ work

The Library of Congress is an agency that was first established, by an act of Congress, in 1800. The act provided for “the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.” Its chief librarian is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The library has six buildings in Washington that hold a print and online collection of nearly 26 million books, as well as more than 136 million other items, including manuscripts, maps, sheet music and prints and photographs.

It also houses historic documents, like Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and James Madison’s notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

The library is the property of the American people. Anyone over the age of 16 with a government-issued photo identification can enter its buildings and read or view its materials on-site. The Library of Congress was partially designed as a research institution to suit the needs of members of Congress, and only Congress members can borrow items from the library and take them home.

The Library of Congress has an annual budget of about US$900 million, with a staff of 3,263. In 2024, the library’s staff helped acquire 1,437,832 million new items, issue nearly 69,000 library cards and answer more than 764,000 reference requests, among other tasks.

The library’s deep roots

The library has evolved alongside the U.S. itself. Five years before the Constitutional Convention of 1787, future president James Madison called for a library to provide materials to help inform Congress and its members. In 1800, President John Adams signed a bill that established the institution, which began with a $5,000 government appropriation, equivalent to more than $127,000 today.

The library’s first collection included 152 works in 740 volumes imported from England. It occupied a space in a Washington Senate office that measured just 22 feet by 34 feet.

The British army torched the infant library and its collection that had grown to 3,000 books in 1814, during the War of 1812. In response, former president Thomas Jefferson sold his personal collection of 6,479 books to the library, which he called “unquestionably the choicest collection of books in the U.S.”

Tragedy struck again in 1851, with a fire that incinerated two-thirds of the library’s 55,000 volumes, including most of Jefferson’s personal collection.

The organization rebounded in the next few years, as it purchased the 40,000-volume Smithsonian library in 1866, among other new acquisitions.

Ainsworth Spofford, the sixth librarian of Congress, boosted the library’s national image in the late 1800s when he tried to centralize the country’s patchwork copyright system.

Spofford also successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Copyright Act of 1870, which stipulated that any party registering a work for copyright needed to deposit two copies of that work with the library.

A growing place in American life

As its collections burgeoned in both scale and scope in the latter part of the 19th century, the library assumed an increasingly visible role and became known by some as “the nation’s library.” By 1900, it had nearly 1 million printed books and other materials.

The opening of a new library building in 1897, offering services to blind people with a designated reading room containing 500 raised character – or braille – books and music items, epitomized the library’s new status.

President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1901 that the library was “the one national library of the United States” and that was “a unique opportunity to render to the libraries of this country – to American scholarship – service of the highest importance.”

The library’s work, and global approach, continued to grow during the 20th century.

By the late 1900s, the library held materials in more than 450 languages.

It continued to add remarkable items to its collection, including a Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed in Europe from movable metal type, a kind of printing technology, in 1455.

Documenting the evolution of democracy, the library also assumed stewardship of 23 presidents’ official papers, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, during this time frame.

A public service

While primarily designated a research institution for Congress, the library has also catered to a diverse range of patrons, including by mail and telephone.

As one Science Digest writer noted in 1960, reference staff members fielded questions ranging from “What was the color of a mastodon’s eye?” to “How many words are there in the English language?” and “Could you suggest a name for twins?”

The library’s register of copyrights received similarly diverse and even humorous inquiries. One older woman seeking to publish her poetry wrote in 1954 to request “a poetic license” to ensure her work conformed to the law.

In the late 20th century, the library focused on a new democratic national and international mission, as it embraced a new role. Daniel Boorstin, the librarian from 1975 to 1987, termed that role a “multimedia encyclopedia.”

A congressional resolution marking the Library of Congress’s bicentennial in 2000 noted that it was “the largest and most inclusive library in human history,” as it digitized its collections to extend its reach still further with the growth of the internet.

As the library marks its 225th year, it continues to represent, as David Mearns, chief of the library’s manuscript division, said in 1947, “the American story.”

A library for all

Following Hayden’s dismissal, Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, as acting librarian of Congress.

Hayden has contended that her dismissal, which occurred alongside other firings of top civil servants, including the national archivist, represents a broad threat to people’s right to easily access free information.

“Democracies are not to be taken for granted,” Hayden said in June. She explained in an interview with CBS that she never had a problem with a presidential administration and is not sure why she was dismissed.

“And the institutions that support democracy should not be taken for granted,” Hayden added.

In her final annual report as librarian, Hayden characterized the institution as “truly, a library for all.” So far, even without her leadership, it remains just that.

Alex H. Poole 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. Trump has fired the head of the Library of Congress, but the 225-year-old institution remains a ‘library for all’ – so far – https://theconversation.com/trump-has-fired-the-head-of-the-library-of-congress-but-the-225-year-old-institution-remains-a-library-for-all-so-far-257508