Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Megan Bryson, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee

In many religions and cultures, women who are menstruating or who just gave birth are not allowed to enter sacred sites, such as temples, or participate in religious rituals. This is because they are often seen as ritually impure.

Early Christians cited menstruation as the reason for not allowing female deacons or priests. Modern Catholic teachings do not express this attitude directly, but some Catholic feminists argue that views of women’s blood pollution still influence the church’s position against women’s ordination.

According to certain Hindu texts, menstruating women should be cut off from the rest of the household and avoid participating in ritual life. In Hinduism, as well as other religions and cultures, traditional taboos related to menstruation and childbirth are, however, no longer practiced widely.

An extreme attitude toward the ritual pollution of menstruation and childbirth appears in a Chinese Buddhist text called the “Blood Bowl Scripture,” which I have studied in my research on East Asian Buddhism.

This text, written in China by the 13th century, spread to Japan soon after. It describes a complicated chain of events in which a woman gives birth at home, then washes her bloody clothes in a nearby river. People downriver don’t realize that the water has been polluted with the blood of childbirth, and they use the water to make tea that they offer to the gods. As punishment for offending the gods with tainted water, the woman who gave birth is condemned to fall into the “Blood Pond Hell” after she dies.

Rebirth in the hells is one possible form of reincarnation in Buddhism, which teaches that the quality of people’s karma in their present life determines where they are reborn in their next life. The “Blood Pond Hell” is one of many kinds of hells found in traditional Buddhism. According to Buddhist worldviews, people are reborn in the hells when their bad karma severely outweighs their good karma. However, after people serve their time in the hells, they can be reborn in other realms.

Japanese Buddhists expanded on this idea to claim that the pollution of menstrual blood alone led to rebirth in the Blood Pond Hell, which condemns all menstruating women to this kind of suffering.

Most educated Buddhist monks in premodern China rejected the Blood Bowl Scripture because it didn’t come from India. Buddhism originated in India, and Buddhist scriptures are supposed to be the words of the Buddha, so the Blood Bowl Scripture was not included in official scriptural catalogs. But the text and its practices became an important part of popular Chinese Buddhism.

For example, a famous Chinese novel from the 17th century, “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” describes its female characters practicing rituals based on the Blood Bowl Scripture.

Blood Pond Hell beliefs and practices still exist today. However, they are not as common as they used to be – and women have developed new interpretations.

Beliefs in modern China

For most women in human history, giving birth has been a requirement, not a choice. Yet, for women in premodern China and Japan, fulfilling the social obligation to have children simultaneously condemned them to “Blood Pond Hell.”

The “Blood Bowl Scripture” encourages adult children to hire Buddhist monks to perform rituals that will save their mothers from this unpleasant fate.

Though not all Buddhists today believe in the hells, including the “Blood Pond Hell,” some do. Visitors to temples and Buddhist theme parks in Asia may find paintings or three-dimensional dioramas of women in a bloody pond.

People who do not believe in the hells may still perform the rituals to save their mothers from the “Blood Pond Hell” to show love and gratitude. In some parts of China, women preemptively save themselves from the “Blood Pond Hell” by performing their own rituals, usually as part of women’s religious associations.

Emphasizing mothers’ self-sacrifice

In many parts of China, middle-aged and older women form voluntary religious associations. The religious associations get together twice a month and on holidays to recite scriptures, make offerings to the gods and go on pilgrimages to sacred sites.

Most women who participate are already menopausal, with grown children. Pre-menopausal women are allowed to participate if they aren’t menstruating.

In the religious associations of southeast China’s Fujian province, women perform a ritual called “Returning to the Buddha” that aims to purify them of bad karma before they die. In this ritual, women atone for different kinds of bad karma, which includes spilling the polluted water they used to clean up after childbirth.

Women’s religious associations across China also recite scriptures to repay mothers’ kindness. Reciting scriptures is seen as creating good karma, which the women dedicate to their mothers. These scriptures still portray uterine blood as polluting, but they also recognize the sacrifices mothers make in bringing their children into the world.

One such scripture describes how mothers sacrifice for their children first in life, then in death when they fall into the “Blood Pond Hell.” The women who recite these texts both express gratitude for their mothers’ sacrifices and recognize their own sacrifices as mothers.

Reframing the female body

In addition to reinterpreting the “Blood Pond Hell” through the lens of mothers’ sacrifice, women in modern China have developed new interpretations of how female bodies are portrayed in “Blood Pond Hell” beliefs and practices.

Buddhist texts often claim that being reborn as a woman is a karmic punishment, and some texts describe female bodies with disgust. For example, a repentance text for saving women from the “Blood Pond Hell” claims that menstruation is caused by 12-headed worms living in the birth canal that vomit blood and pus once a month.

However, in my research I encountered a sermon about this repentance text by the Taiwanese nun Venerable Shi Changyin. She claims that “worms” really meant “bacteria” or “cells,” but premodern people lacked the biomedical terminology to express this properly.

Changyin’s reinterpretation of worms as cells reflects other ways for women to think about the blood of menstruation and childbirth. The negative views of female bodies expressed in the “Blood Bowl Scripture” are one perspective among many in contemporary Chinese culture.

Buddhist teachings that downplay the importance of gender, traditional Chinese medicine, and biomedicine offer other perspectives on reproduction and female bodies. Many scholars and practitioners of Chinese Buddhism reject “Blood Pond Hell” beliefs as remnants of negative attitudes toward female bodies in early Buddhism.

They see Mahayana Buddhism, the main form practiced in China, as promoting gender equality. In traditional Chinese medicine, blood is an important part of women’s health as a source of vitality rather than impurity. And biomedicine avoids concepts like purity and pollution when treating issues related to menstruation and childbirth.

A narrative of empowerment

The “Blood Bowl Scripture” demonizes the blood of menstruation and childbirth and, by extension, reproductive female bodies in general. Yet many women, past and present, have participated in the scripture’s rituals to save their mothers or themselves from this fate.

It is important not to just dismiss women’s participation as internalized misogyny, but to understand what women get out of these practices.

Women in Chinese Buddhism have taken the initiative in emphasizing maternal self-sacrifice over ritual pollution and in using other frameworks to make sense of menstruation and childbirth.

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

– ref. How women are reinterpreting the menstrual taboos in Chinese Buddhism – https://theconversation.com/how-women-are-reinterpreting-the-menstrual-taboos-in-chinese-buddhism-272175

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Alessandro Piazza, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, Rice University

When U.S. Border Patrol agents entered a Target store in Richfield, Minnesota, in early January, detaining two employees, it marked a new chapter in the relationship between corporate America and the federal government.

Across the Twin Cities, federal immigration enforcement operations have turned businesses into sites of confrontation — with agents in store parking lots rounding up day laborers, armed raids on restaurants and work authorization inspections conducted in tactical gear.

Some retailers report revenue drops of 50% to 80% as customers stay home out of fear. Along Lake Street and in East St. Paul, areas within the Twin Cities, an estimated 80% of businesses have closed their doors at some point since the operations began.

Then came the killing of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the latter of which came a day after widespread protests and a one-day business blackout involving over 700 establishments.

The response of corporate America to those killings was instructive — both for what was said and left unsaid. After the Pretti killing, more than 60 CEOs from Minnesota’s largest companies — Target, 3M, UnitedHealth Group, U.S. Bancorp, General Mills, Best Buy and others — signed a public letter organized by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. The letter called for “peace,” “focused cooperation” among local, state and federal officials, and a “swift and durable solution” so that families, workers and businesses could return to normal.

What it didn’t do was name Pretti, mention federal immigration enforcement or criticize any specific policy or official. It read less like moral leadership and more like corporate risk management.

As a researcher who studies corporate political engagement, I think the Minnesota CEO letter is a window into a broader shift. For years, companies could take progressive stances with limited risk — activists would punish them if they remained silent on an issue, but conservatives rarely retaliated when they spoke up. That asymmetry has collapsed. Minneapolis shows what corporate activism looks like when the risks cut both ways: hedged language, no names named and calls for calm.

A shifting pattern

In 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, corporate America was remarkably quiet compared with its vocal stances on LGBTQ+ rights or the war in Ukraine.

The explanation: Companies tend to hedge on issues that are contested and polarizing. In my research with colleagues on companies taking stances on LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, I’ve found that businesses frame their stances narrowly when issues are unsettled — focusing on workplace concerns and internal constituencies like employees rather than broader advocacy. Only after issues are legally or socially settled do some companies shift to clearer activism, adopting the language of social movements: injustice, moral obligation, calls to action.

By that logic, the Minnesota CEOs’ caution makes sense. The Trump administration’s federal immigration enforcement policy is deeply contested. There’s no clear legal or social settlement in sight.

But something else has changed since 2022 — something that goes beyond any particular issue.

For years, corporate activism operated under a favorable asymmetry that allowed them to stake out public positions on controversial topics without much negative consequence.

That is, activists and employees pressured companies to speak out on progressive causes, and silence carried real costs. Meanwhile, conservatives largely subscribed to free-market economist Milton Friedman’s view that the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. They generally didn’t demand corporate stances on their issues, and they didn’t organize sustained punishment for progressive corporate speech.

That asymmetry has collapsed

During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, corporations rushed to declare their commitments to racial justice, diversity and social responsibility. Many of those same companies have since quietly dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion programs, walked back public commitments and gone silent on issues they once called moral imperatives. It appears that their allegedly deeply held values were contingent on a favorable political environment. When the risks shifted, the values evaporated.

The turning point may have been Disney’s opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2022. The company faced criticism from employees and activists for not doing enough – and then fierce retaliation from Florida’s government, which stripped Disney of self-governing privileges it had held for 55 years.

In other high-profile examples, Delta lost tax breaks in Georgia after ending discounts for National Rifle Association members following the Parkland shooting. And Bud Light lost billions in market value after a single social media promotion that featured Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer.

Conservatives learned to play the game that progressive activists invented. And unlike consumer boycotts, government retaliation carries a different kind of weight.

Minneapolis reveals the new calculus

What makes Minneapolis distinctive is that the federal government isn’t a distant policy actor debating legislation in Washington. It’s a physical presence in companies’ daily operations. When federal agents can show up at your store, detain your employees, raid your parking lot and audit your hiring records, the calculation about whether to criticize federal policy looks very different than when the worst-case scenario is an angry tweet from a politician.

Research finds that politicians are less willing to engage with CEOs who take controversial stances – even in private meetings – regardless of local economic conditions or the politicians’ own views on business. The chilling effect is real. As one observer noted, Minnesota companies communicated through industry associations specifically “to avoid direct exposure to possible retaliation.”

“De-escalation,” then, has become the corporate buzzword of choice because, as one news report in The Wall Street Journal noted, it “sounds humane while remaining politically noncommittal.” It points to a process goal – reduce conflict, restore order – rather than a contested diagnosis of responsibility.

This is the triple bind facing businesses in Minneapolis: pressure from the federal government on one side, pressure from activists and employees on the other, and the economic devastation from enforcement itself — comparable in some areas to the COVID-19 pandemic — crushing them in the middle. It’s a situation that rewards silence and punishes principle, and most companies are making the predictable choice.

And yet the situation within companies is also full of internal tensions, whether they’re companies headquartered in Minnesota or not. At tech company Palantir, which holds contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, employees took to internal Slack channels after Pretti’s death to express that they felt “not proud” to work for a company tied to what they described as “the bad guys.” Similar sentiments could be seen at elsewhere, where rank-and-file employees expressed far more vocal outrage than their bosses.

What comes next

The Minnesota CEO letter is what corporate political engagement looks like when the risks run in every direction: no injustice framing, no attribution of blame, no names named — just calls for stability and cooperation.

As a local Minneapolis writer put it in an op-ed: “Stand up, or sit down … because the Minnesotans who are standing up? We don’t recognize you.”

It’s not cowardice, exactly. It’s what the research predicts when an issue is contested and the costs of speaking cut both ways.

But it does mean Americans shouldn’t expect corporations to lead when government power is directly at stake. The conditions that enabled corporate activism on LGBTQ+ rights — an asymmetry where speaking out was relatively low-risk — don’t exist here.

Until the political landscape shifts, the hedged statement and the cautious coalition letter are the new normal. Corporate activism, it turns out, might always have been more about positioning than principle.

Alessandro Piazza 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 corporate America is mostly staying quiet as federal immigration agents show up at its doors – https://theconversation.com/why-corporate-america-is-mostly-staying-quiet-as-federal-immigration-agents-show-up-at-its-doors-274746

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Amy J. Sheer, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Florida

GLP-1 drugs have ushered in a new era in weight loss.

In just a few years, medications such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, known by the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound, have gone from niche diabetes treatments to household names, reshaping how America thinks about weight loss.

A November 2025 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 1 in 8 U.S. adults have tried a GLP-1 medication for weight loss, diabetes or another condition. And we expect that number to rise now that one of these drugs, Wegovy, has become available in pill form, increasing its accessibility for many people.

These drugs’ ability to help patients lose anywhere from 15% to 20% of body weight has made them one of the most powerful nonsurgical obesity treatments ever seen.

GLP-1, short for glucagon-like peptide-1, is a hormone your gut normally makes that helps control blood sugar and appetite after eating. It signals the pancreas to release insulin when blood sugar rises and slows how quickly food leaves the stomach, which helps people feel full sooner.

Modern GLP-1 medications are designed to amplify these effects, leading to better blood sugar control and substantial weight loss for many patients.

But success brings a new question that millions of people are confronting: What happens after the weight comes off? And just as importantly, what should patients do when their progress suddenly stalls, even while still on the medication?

As an obesity medicine physician, I’ve seen firsthand how life-changing GLP-1 drug therapy can be for my patients. But I also remind each of them that no medication – GLP-1s included – replaces the foundational importance of nutrition, physical activity, sleep and mental health. These lifestyle pillars are essential for maintaining muscle and bone health, preventing significant weight regain and supporting long-term cardiovascular and metabolic health.

The key is simple but critical: Every weight-loss or health plan must be tailored to each person.

How the body responds to weight loss

In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 40% of American adults live with obesity. For most people, the real challenge isn’t losing weight – it’s keeping it off.

Researchers have known this for decades. As early as the mid-20th century, studies of commercial diet programs showed that while short-term weight loss was common, regaining weight long term was the norm.

This is because when people lose weight, the body’s natural inclination is to return to its previous weight – a phenomenon called metabolic adaptation. As a result, the brain releases more of the hunger hormone ghrelin and dials down leptin, one of the hormones that signals fullness and energy sufficiency.

The net effect is simple: After weight loss, people are hungrier, feel less satisfied after eating and burn fewer calories than expected. The body interprets weight loss as a threat to survival and responds by slamming the brakes on metabolism through sophisticated energy-conserving mechanisms. Put plainly, when there’s less body weight to maintain, the body does less work – but it also becomes extra efficient, burning fewer calories than predicted and nudging weight back up.

Add to that an environment filled with ultraprocessed foods, oversized portions, high stress and limited time for movement, and it’s no surprise that so many people’s weight ends up yo-yoing despite their best efforts.

Putting GLP-1 drugs to the test

Clinical trials on GLP-1 medications also follow these well-established patterns. A pivotal 2021 clinical study of more than 1,900 adults, known as the STEP 1 trial, laid the groundwork for the use of these drugs as a treatment for weight loss.

But a follow-up 2021 study, known as STEP 4, showed that within 48 weeks of no longer taking semaglutide, participants regained approximately two-thirds of their prior weight loss, while those who remained on GLP-1 drug therapy continued to lose weight.

This is not because people lack discipline, but rather because their biology fights hard to return to its old set point.

Lower-cost, longer-term maintenance

Although obesity is now widely recognized as a chronic disease, clinical guidance has not kept pace with this new generation of highly effective medications.

For most patients, the most effective long‑term strategy after achieving a target weight is to continue GLP‑1 treatment. Clinicians aim for the lowest dose that still helps regulate appetite and stabilize weight.

Another option patients may pursue is to slowly taper off the drugs over about three to six months and to focus on reinforcing lifestyle choices that support goals for overall health and weight maintenance.

When your weight plateaus on a GLP‑1 drug

Plateaus in weight loss are normal, even on GLP‑1 drug therapy.

In clinical trials, weight loss with GLP-1 medications tends to follow a predictable curve: rapid early losses during drug initiation and dose increases, a gradual slowing and eventual plateau. A plateau, typically defined as little or no weight change for eight to 12 weeks, is not a sign of failure but rather the body adapting to a lower weight.

But before assuming that a GLP-1 medication has stopped working, clinicians will typically consider how the patient is using the drug, such as whether it’s being taken properly, with little to no missed doses, and whether it is being stored properly.

Clinicians will also evaluate a patient for medical conditions that might make weight loss more challenging, such as perimenopause or hypothyroidism, which is underactive thyroid.

They will also take into consideration whether the patient is on other drugs that might be obesogenic, meaning causing weight gain, or if they are using an FDA-approved GLP-1 drug versus a compounded medication, which can have variable quality and unknown efficacy.

Balancing weight loss with bone health

Helpful strategies to prevent weight regain related to diet include building meals around lean protein and noticing where calories might be creeping in, such as snacks, sugary drinks and alcohol.

With GLP-1 drugs, the goal for nutrition has shifted from calorie restriction to calorie quality. Aim for a healthy balance of vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains. And make sure your water intake is sufficient, especially since GLP-1 medications not only reduce hunger but can also reduce feeling thirsty.

When it comes to movement and exercise, people can add resistance training, increase their exercise intensity or both.

With any weight loss, no matter the method, people lose not only fat but also some muscle and bone. In clinical trials of GLP-1 medications, fat loss far outweighs losses of lean mass. However, any loss of lean mass matters because it can affect physical function, fracture risk and how well the body maintains weight and metabolic health over time.

Weight loss reduces the mechanical load on bones, which can lead to lower bone density and, in some people – such as those who are postmenopausal, as well as people over age 65 – an increased risk of fracture. Because bones adapt to the weight they carry, losing weight means less stress on the skeleton, and over time this can lead to small decreases in bone strength. This underscores the importance of resistance exercise for strength training, adequate protein intake during GLP-1 therapy and close monitoring for patients who are at higher risk of fracture.

Next-generation therapies, which include combinations of GLP-1 drugs and other peptides, are being studied for their potential to better preserve muscle and bone compared with GLP-1 drugs alone.

Patients on GLP-1 drugs who are experiencing a plateau may also want to talk with their doctor about considering a dose adjustment, medication switch or adding an additional drug.

If GLP-1 medication doses cannot be increased due to side effects, doctors will consider all options for other medications and for optimizing lifestyle, such as nutrition, exercise and sleep, to support the patient’s goals.

Amy J. Sheer has received consultant (honorarium) funding from PeerView. I am also in discussion with Eli Lilly about being a speaker, but I have not started in this role.

– ref. You’ve reached your weight loss goal on GLP-1 medications – what now? – https://theconversation.com/youve-reached-your-weight-loss-goal-on-glp-1-medications-what-now-270413

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Gidon Jakar, Assistant professor of sport management, University of Florida

Detroit’s population reportedly grew in 2023 for the first time in 60 years, a trend that has continued in recent years. Over the past decade, the city center has experienced substantial private and public investments and development.

I personally witnessed some of the changes in Detroit while I was studying for my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan’s sport management program. I am now an assistant professor at the University of Florida, where I research how sport affects local economies.

One of the changes I witnessed was the construction of Little Caesars Arena and its opening in 2017. The venue cost an estimated US$863 million, including $324 million in public money – a substantial amount, especially considering it was allocated so close to the city’s bankruptcy filing in 2013. The financing deal also included property development agreements, some of which have yet to materialize.

The arena’s primary users and operators are the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings are owned by the Ilitch family, which founded Little Caesars pizza in Detroit in 1959.

My colleagues Nasim Binesh, Kyriaki Kaplanidou and I recently published research examining how much impact the arena had on the hospitality industry in Detroit.

Sport venues and the promise of financial gains

A persistent debate on the benefits of sport venues to local economies is taking place at the same time public officials continue to commit substantial resources toward them.

In just the past five years, in cities such as Buffalo, Las Vegas and Nashville, local and state officials have partnered with sports teams to build new stadiums, frequently offering the franchises incentives, including tax write-offs, free rent and construction cost-sharing.

Far less often, these attempts to build stadiums fail. That happened recently in Kansas City – where voters rejected a new stadium – and Philadelphia, where the team reversed its decision to build the arena near the city’s Chinatown.

As I note in a study co-authored with Mark Rosentraub, a professor at the University of Michigan, cities are competing with each other for new residents and tax revenue from development and economic activity. Some officials clearly perceive maintaining or obtaining “major league” status as an advantage so important that they are willing to spend tax dollars to assist wealthy franchises.

This may explain why it happens, but it does not necessarily justify it.

Little Caesars Arena and the lodging industry

In our study, we examined the lodging industry, including hotels and short-term rentals, which experienced substantial growth coinciding with Detroit’s economic growth.

Short-term rental data was purchased from AirDNA, and hotel data was obtained from STR. Both of these sites compile and sell data, primarily to investors and owners of short-term rentals and hotels.

Our quantitative analysis examined millions of records from 2015 to 2022. Rentals within the city’s boundaries increased from 462 units in 2015 to 2,582 in 2022. A healthy cluster near the city’s downtown grew substantially over this period.

In 2015, 24,592 nights were booked in short-term rentals. By 2022, that number had increased to 161,952. Over the same period, demand for hotel rooms decreased by 19%.

However, hotel rates increased over the same period from an average of $128.20 in 2015 to $197.05 in 2023, meaning that despite the decreased demand, annual hotel revenues increased from $229.6 million in 2015 to $306.1 million in 2023.

Hotels and short-term rentals in Detroit are subject to the state’s 6% sales tax. Hotels also must pay citywide lodging taxes ranging from 3% to 6%, depending on the number of rooms. Lodging taxes are not currently collected for short-term rentals.

The arena opened, then what?

So, how much did the new arena affect the supply and demand for lodging?

To answer that question, we compared Detroit’s numbers with short-term rental data from Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in the state.

The answer is not that much.

Detroit’s short-term rental growth was not dissimilar to that in Grand Rapids – even though no major league franchises play there and no major stadium had been built there. Demand in Grand Rapids grew 1,210% versus 1,284% in Detroit. The number of units available grew by 702% in Grand Rapids, compared to 674% in Detroit.

Regarding the impact of Little Caesars Arena, our study suggests sport events there do not appear to have a positive impact on the lodging industry.

While sporting events had little impact, the arena also hosts concerts with big-name acts, including Harry Styles, Jay-Z and The Weeknd. Our research shows these concerts significantly increased occupancy rates in short-term rentals – although the effect did not translate to hotels.

But the rentals needed to be very convenient to the venue. Increases on concert nights were more than three times higher in short-term rental units located within a mile of the arena compared to the city as a whole.

Gidon Jakar 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. Has Little Caesars Arena boosted economic activity in Detroit? We looked at hotel and short-term rental industry data to find out – https://theconversation.com/has-little-caesars-arena-boosted-economic-activity-in-detroit-we-looked-at-hotel-and-short-term-rental-industry-data-to-find-out-272421

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michele Heisler, Professor of Internal Medicine and Health Behavior and Health Equity, University of Michigan

Images and videos from Minneapolis, Chicago and other U.S. cities show masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in military-style gear pointing weapons at people protesting or observing immigration enforcement actions. These are not typical firearms; they are riot control agents, and they emit cascades of projectiles or plumes of smoke.

In other scenes unfolding in cities across the country, officers launch metal canisters that explode loudly and scatter blinding flashes of light. The people targeted are shown screaming, disoriented and in some cases bleeding after being struck at close range. Those enveloped by smoke frequently cough and gasp for air.

What exactly are these weapons? What do they do to the human body? Are there rules governing their use? And what are their short- and long-term health effects?

As physician-researchers who have investigated the health consequences of human rights violations for decades, including misuse of so-called less lethal weapons in multiple countries, including the United States, we have studied how these tools are deployed and the harms that can result.

What are less lethal weapons?

U.S. law enforcement and federal agents deploy four main categories of crowd-control weapons: chemical irritants, kinetic impact projectiles known as KIPs, disorientation devices and electronic control weapons.

These weapons have been dubbed “less lethal” compared with live ammunition. But “less lethal” does not mean harmless. They can cause pain, fear and physiological stress and can result in serious injury or death.

Chemical irritants, commonly called tear gas, cause intense pain and irritation of the eyes, skin and upper respiratory tract. They trigger coughing, breathing difficulty, disorientation, vomiting and panic. Delivered through sprays, pellets or canisters, they are inherently indiscriminate, affecting anyone in the area.

The most widely used agents in tear gas include chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, CS for short, and oleoresin capsicum, or OC, also called pepper spray. OC contains capsaicin, which is the compound that gives chiles their burning heat, at concentrations thousands of times stronger than those found in natural peppers. A synthetic version known as PAVA is also sometimes used. The amount, composition and concentration released can vary widely by manufacturer and country and remain largely unregulated. The spray can eject forcefully, reaching up to 20 feet depending on the canister design.

Kinetic impact projectiles transfer energy from a moving object into the body. Often called rubber bullets, they may be made of rubber, plastic, metal, foam, wood or composite materials. Some are fired as single projectiles, while others are dispersed in multiple pellets. Injury risk depends on the projectile’s size, speed, material, direction and firing distance.

Flash-bang grenades, or stun grenades, are designed to disorient through a combination of deafening noise, blinding light, heat, fragmentation and pressure. Some devices produce sound levels above 170 decibels – far louder than most gunshots.

Electronic conduction devices, such as Tasers, have historically been used in individual arrests, but they are increasingly used in protest policing. Metal barbs from the device lodge in the skin and deliver high-voltage electrical current, causing intense pain and temporary loss of muscle control.

More recently, electrified shields and devices attached to an officer’s body or equipment – previously used inside prisons – have appeared at protests in some countries.

How are less lethal weapons supposed to be used?

In 2020 the United Nations issued detailed guidance on the use of less lethal weapons in law enforcement. In 2023 we worked with Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations to conduct updated analyses of these weapons.

The U.N. basic principles on the use of force and firearms specify that force should be used only as a last resort, and it should be proportionate to the threat. Officers using force should protect bystanders and vulnerable populations, such as children and older adults, and stop once the threat has ended.

Similar principles appear in use-of-force policies adopted by most U.S. police departments, though adherence is uneven. The Department of Homeland Security and specifically ICE have older published guidance. Recent ICE actions appear to breach that already vague language.

A 2021 Government Accountability Office report found that most ICE agents do not receive specialized training in the safe and appropriate use of crowd-control weapons, and training appears to be more limited now.

According to the U.N. guidelines, before deploying such weapons, well-trained officers are expected to assess whether a genuine threat exists, communicate with demonstration leadership when possible, consider alternative options and provide clear warnings. If officers use crowd-control weapons, they should be deployed to minimize injury and avoid indiscriminate harm.

For proper deployment, the U.N. use of force guidelines stipulate that officers should not fire weapons directly at individuals, and they should avoid the head and face. They should communicate prior to deploying, use only the minimum amount necessary and maintain safe exit routes.

In practice, these safeguards can be difficult to implement in fast-moving, crowded environments

Potential health harms

Crowd-control weapons can cause severe and sometimes permanent injuries. Chemical irritants affect the eyes, skin and lungs first, causing scratches to the surface of the eye, painful skin reactions, breathing difficulties and acute psychological distress. Some people develop longer-term post-traumatic stress disorder.

Our global review of the medical literature documented more than 100,000 injuries from chemical irritants between 2016 and 2021, along with at least 14 deaths, all due to blunt trauma from canisters. Higher concentrations or prolonged exposure increase the risk of serious and permanent injuries, including open sores on the surface of the eye, chemical burns and chronic respiratory disease.

Kinetic impact projectiles can cause both blunt and penetrating injuries, with eye injuries among the most severe. Direct impact often results in permanent blindness and, in rare cases, penetration of the brain through the eye socket.

Blunt head trauma from these projectiles can cause concussions, internal bleeding, skull fractures and lasting neurological damage. Projectiles striking the chest, abdomen or genitalia can injure vital organs. Risk is highest when KIPs contain metal components, are fired at close range or disperse multiple projectiles.

Our global 2017 systematic review identified nearly 2,000 people injured by KIPs over 25 years, including 53 deaths and hundreds of permanent disabilities. Subsequent reviews documented thousands more injuries worldwide, many resulting in permanent disability or death.

Flash-bang grenades also pose significant risks. Investigative reporting and medical analyses have documented dozens of severe injuries and deaths linked to their use in the United States. These devices have caused deep burns, hearing loss and blast-related trauma, particularly when deployed in enclosed spaces or thrown directly at individuals. When fired toward a person, these devices can also act as kinetic projectiles, compounding the risk of serious injury.

Electronic conduction devices can cause dangerous heart rhythm problems and electrocution injuries. They also can rip the skin when barbs strike sensitive areas, such as the eyes or genitalia.

In practice, the harm these “less lethal” weapons can cause depends less on what they’re called than on how, where and against whom they’re used. In the absence of clearer limits and oversight, people exercising their right to protest face real risks of injury.

From a medical perspective, people exposed to crowd-control weapons should move to fresh air, rinse exposed skin and eyes with clean water, and remove contaminated clothing as soon as possible.

Anyone struck by a projectile or exposed to a flash-bang should seek medical evaluation, even if they don’t have immediately obvious injuries. Internal injuries, eye damage, hearing loss or brain injury may not be apparent at first. Persistent eye pain, vision changes, breathing difficulty, chest symptoms, severe pain, or confusion warrant prompt medical care, particularly for children, older adults and people with underlying health conditions.

Michele Heisler is affiliated with Physicians for Human Rights, a non-partisan nongovernmental health and human rights organization that leverages medical, scientific, and public health evidence/research to document the health effects of human rights violations.

She currently has research funding from the NIDDK, NHLBI, American Diabetes Association and the Wellcome Trust but not for any research related to the topic of less-lethal weapons.

Rohini J Haar serves as a medical expert and consultant at Physicians for Human Rights, a non-partisan nongovernmental health and human rights organization that leverages medical, scientific, and public health evidence/research to document the health effects of human rights violations. She is not engaged in any partisan political activities as a volunteer or member.

– ref. ‘Less lethal’ crowd-control weapons still cause harm – 2 physicians explain what they are and their health effects – https://theconversation.com/less-lethal-crowd-control-weapons-still-cause-harm-2-physicians-explain-what-they-are-and-their-health-effects-274809

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Melinda Laituri, Professor Emeritus of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University

Although women have always been part of the mapping landscape, their contributions to cartography have long been overlooked.

Mapmaking has traditionally featured men, from Mercator’s projection of the world in the 1500s to land surveyors such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson mapping property in the 1700s, to Roger Tomlinson’s development of geographic information systems in the 1960s. Cartography and related geospatial technologies fields continue to be male-dominated.

But as a geographer and specialist in geographic information systems, I have observed how opportunities for women as mapmakers have changed over the past five decades. The advent of technologies such as geographic information systems has increased education, employment and research opportunities for women, making mapmaking more accessible.

The female landscape

Women have long been essential to how people see and understand the world. The concept of Mother Earth or Mother Nature as the center of the universe and source of all life spans Indigenous cultures around the globe.

In the 20th century, the scientific community and environmental activists adopted the term Gaia – the Greek goddess personifying the Earth, the mother of all deities – to reflect the notion of the Earth as a living system. Gaia is represented as female and understood as a guiding force in maintaining the atmosphere, oceans and climate.

The representation of land as woman was reshaped with the rise of nationalism when the terms “fatherland” and “motherland”took on distinct meanings. Fatherland implied heritage and tradition, while motherland suggests place of birth and sense of belonging. These gendered constructs appear across cultures.

Another aspect of the gendered nature of cartography is the way maps used female forms to portray features. Anthropomorphic maps from the 16th through 19th centuries demonstrate how cartographers used female figures to depict European countries. For example, cartographer Johannes Putsch’s “Europa Regina,” originally drawn in 1537, set the template for later maps in which nations are depicted as women in various poses and different states of dress – or undress – though they don’t actually correspond closely to the actual shapes of real landforms.

These maps reflect shifting cultural and political meanings attached to territory and power. The female landscape, or woman as map, is often used to portray countries as active, aggressive or supine, depending upon the status of the nation state in relation to war and peace and the stereotypes of a country.

Technology and women’s roles in mapmaking

While the technical contributions women have made to mapping span the entire history of cartography, they are difficult to identify and document. But a closer look reveals the variety of roles women have played in mapmaking.

One of the earliest known examples of a map made by a woman dates to the fourth century, when the sister of the prime minister of the Han Dynasty in China embroidered a map on silk.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, women were employed to color maps and contribute artistic details to borders. Many women cartographers used only a first initial and last name, obscuring their gender and making their work difficult to trace.

The 18th century brought the advent of printing, which opened new avenues for women to participate as engravers of copper plates, publishers of maps, and globemakers.

By the 19th century, cartography became part of formal education for women in North America, where the intersection of embroidery and geography produced fabric globes and linen maps. This was later followed by drawing and coloring maps as access to paper and pencils improved.

World War II ushered in a new era of opportunity for women in the U.S., as they were recruited to fill critical roles in cartographic development while men were sent to war. Known as Millie the Mapper or the Military Mapping Maidens, women produced topographic maps, interpreted aerial photography and helped advance photogrammetry, the use of photos to make 3D models of the Earth’s topography.

Building on the expanding role of women in cartography, in the 1950s Evelyn Pruitt of the U.S. Office of Naval Research coined the term remote sensing, referring to the use of satellite imagery to observe, measure and map the Earth. In the same period, mathematician Gladys West developed the mathematical models for global positioning systems, known as GPS.

Women creating the maps

Women have also overseen the creation of maps in a number of ways.

Indigenous matriarchal societies expressed spatial information through different forms of cartography. These includes songs, dances and rituals that identified important communal resources such as springs, sacred groves and migration paths.

The development of European cartography was driven by the Age of Exploration from the 15th to 17th centuries and entrepreneurial activities associated with reproducing and selling maps. Women often assumed these roles after the deaths of their husbands, ensuring the continuation of family businesses.

Not only kings but queens also directed what maps were needed. For example, Queen Elizabeth I commissioned the 1579 Atlas of England and Wales, one of the first national atlases. It rendered a map of the entire country, accessible from home or a reading room.

Women setting the direction of maps

While early maps positioned women primarily as symbolic bodies to project political meaning or as supporters of larger mapping enterprises, contemporary cartography reveals a different dynamic between gender and maps: There is a lack of geographic data on issues affecting women, including health, safety and planning for the future.

For example, women are disproportionately affected by disasters, including through a heightened risk of experiencing gender-based violence. Geographic analyses reveal a persistent gender gap in datasets, which often lack information on women’s health and daily needs, reproductive services or child care centers.

Studies have shown that the development of geospatial technologies and open mapping platforms are dominated by men. In situations such as disasters, having a diversity of perspectives in mapmaking is essential to serving the needs of the community.

Creating maps that specifically reflect women’s needs is foundational for women to fully participate in 21st-century mapmaking. In the past decade, several programs and organizations have been working to reflect women’s contributions to cartography and demonstrate how collective action can make a difference.

For example, African Women in GIS hosts workshops to elevate women’s perspectives and mapping needs, putting mobile mapping technology in women’s hands. GeoChicas and YouthMappers’ Let Girls Map empower women to make maps through training and education that address the digital divide. Women in GIS and Women+ in Geospatial build community in mapmaking through professional networks. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team amplifies women’s voices to inform geospatial approaches to mapmaking and empowering women’s mapmaking contributions.

Never have there been more opportunities for women to participate in mapmaking, and never has women’s role in mapmaking been as important to address the intractable issues societies face around the world.

Melinda Laituri 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. Women have been mapping the world for centuries – and now they’re speaking up for the people left out of those maps – https://theconversation.com/women-have-been-mapping-the-world-for-centuries-and-now-theyre-speaking-up-for-the-people-left-out-of-those-maps-272757

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michael J. Lansing, Professor of History, Augsburg University

Forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant. Arresting journalists who reported on protests. Defying dozens of federal orders. Killing U.S. citizens for noncompliance. Asking constitutionally protected observers this chilling question: “Have you not learned?”

This is daily life in Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge, ostensibly an immigration enforcement initiative, has become something more consequential: a constitutional stress test. Can constitutional protections withstand the actions of a federal government seemingly intent on aggressively violating the rule of law?

In Minneapolis, a city still reckoning with its own grim history of policing, the federal operation raises fundamental questions about law enforcement and the limits of executive power.

Legal scholars and civil rights advocates are especially worried about ongoing violations of the First, Second, Fourth and 10th amendments, as are other observers, including historians like us.

Catalog of violations

First Amendment concerns stem from reports that agents from ICE – described by some scholars as a paramilitary force – and the Border Patrol have deployed excessive force as well as advanced surveillance methods on suspects, observers and journalists. When enforcement activity impedes the rights to assemble, document and criticize government action, that chills those rights, and the consequences extend beyond any single demonstration. These rights are not peripheral to democracy. They are central to it.

Second Amendment issues erupted following the fatal shooting of a legally armed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Highly placed administration officials claimed Americans could not bring firearms to protests, despite a long-standing interpretation that in most states, including Minnesota, a person who was legally permitted to carry a firearm could bring it to such events. The assertion was in fact contrary to the Trump administration’s support for gun rights.

Thanks to the videos flooding social media, Fourth Amendment concerns are the most familiar. Allegations include entering homes without warrants, stopping, intimidating and seizing legal observers, and detaining suspects by virtue of their appearance or accent. Those are clear violations of the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures, which were adopted to prevent the exercise of arbitrary government power.

Finally, the 10th Amendment lies at the heart of Minnesota’s legal cases against the federal government.

One lawsuit contests the federal government’s refusal to allow the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Another challenges efforts to pressure local governments into assisting federal immigration enforcement. These disputes implicate federalism itself – the constitutional division of authority between states and the federal government that is the foundation of the American system.

The massive and rapid accumulation of these alleged constitutional violations – now working their way through the courts – in a single geographic locale is striking. So are the mass resignations from the state’s U.S. attorney’s office, which is responsible for representing the federal government in these cases.

And so is the deeper historical context.

A retreat from federal constitutional oversight

Starting in 1994, federal intervention became a powerful corrective whenever local police violated constitutional rights.

From Newark to New Orleans, federal oversight was not always welcomed, but it was frequently necessary to enforce equal protection and due process.

Federal oversight has been essential in enforcing civil rights when municipalities would not. Active monitoring of policing in those cities kept officers and administrators accountable and encouraged officers to follow constitutional standards. At its core, what experts call “constitutional policing” requires that government’s use of authority to ensure order be justified, limited and subject to oversight.

In that vein, after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, the 2023 U.S. Department of Justice report on policing in Minneapolis identified questionable patterns and practices. Those problems included the “unreasonable” use of deadly force, racial profiling and retaliation against journalists. The Department of Justice’s proposed consent decree – grounded in constitutional policing – offered a way forward.

But in May 2025, the Department of Justice, under the leadership of President Donald Trump’s appointee Pam Bondi, withdrew the recommended agreement.

Seven months later, Operation Metro Surge deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota with a markedly different enforcement philosophy.

Indeed, the recent expansion of federal enforcement authority in Minnesota followed a retreat from federal constitutional oversight.

Taking the handcuffs off

A presidential executive order, signed by Trump in late April 2025 and titled “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” pledged to remove what were described as “handcuffs” on police.

Soon thereafter, the administration deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles amid immigration protests.

Though a federal judge later rejected the legal rationale for that deployment, in August 2025, the president sent National Guard forces to Washington, D.C., purportedly to reduce crime. In September 2025, Trump described American cities as potential “training grounds” for the military to confront what he called the “enemy from within.”

Each episode reflects an increasingly expansive view of executive branch authority.

Whether Operation Metro Surge ultimately withstands judicial scrutiny remains to be seen. Numerous lawsuits continue to wind their way through the courts.

But the broader question is already clear: When, in the name of security, the executive branch directly challenges so many Bill of Rights protections at once, how much strain can the American legal system absorb? Will basic constitutional rights survive this moment?

What is unfolding in Minnesota is not simply a local enforcement story. It is a test of whether the Constitution as we know it will survive.

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

– ref. ICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota − accused of violating 1st, 2nd, 4th and 10th amendment rights − are testing whether the Constitution can survive – https://theconversation.com/ice-and-border-patrol-in-minnesota-accused-of-violating-1st-2nd-4th-and-10th-amendment-rights-are-testing-whether-the-constitution-can-survive-274613

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Bingbing Zhang, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa

Informing people about political deepfakes through text-based information and interactive games both improve people’s ability to spot AI-generated video and audio that falsely depict politicians, according to a study my colleagues and I conducted.

Although researchers have focused primarily on advancing technologies for detecting deepfakes, there is also a need for approaches that address the potential audiences for political deepfakes. Deepfakes are becoming increasingly difficult to identify, verify and combat as artificial intelligence technology improves.

Is it possible to inoculate the public to detect deepfakes, thereby increasing their awareness before exposure? My recent research with fellow media studies researchers Sang Jung Kim and Alex Scott at the Visual Media Lab at the University of Iowa has found that inoculation messages can help people recognize deepfakes and even make people more willing to debunk them.

Inoculation theory proposes that psychological inoculation – analogous to getting a medical vaccination – can immunize people against persuasive attacks. The idea is that by explaining to people how deepfakes work, they become primed to recognize them when they encounter them.

In our experiment, we exposed one-third of participants to passive inoculation: traditional text-based warning messages about the threat and the characteristics of deepfakes. We exposed another third to active inoculation: an interactive game that challenged participants to identify deepfakes. The remaining third were given no inoculation.

Participants were then randomly shown either a deepfake video featuring Joe Biden making pro-abortion rights statements or a deepfake video featuring Donald Trump making anti-abortion rights statements. We found that both types of inoculation were effective in reducing the credibility participants gave to the deepfakes, while also increasing people’s awareness and intention to learn more about them.

Why it matters

Deepfakes are a serious threat to democracy because they use AI to create very realistic fake audio and video. These deepfakes can make politicians appear to say things they never actually said, which can damage public trust and cause people to believe false information. For example, some voters in New Hampshire received a phone call that sounded like Joe Biden, telling them not to vote in the state’s primary election.

Because AI technology is becoming more common, it is especially important to find ways to reduce the harmful effects of deepfakes. Recent research shows that labeling deepfakes with fact-checking statements is often not very effective, especially in political contexts. People tend to accept or reject fact-checks based on their existing political beliefs. In addition, false information often spreads faster than accurate information, making fact-checking too slow to fully stop the impact of false information.

As a result, researchers are increasingly calling for new ways to prepare people to resist misinformation in advance. Our research contributes to developing more effective strategies to help people resist AI-generated misinformation.

What other research is being done

Most research on inoculation against misinformation relies on passive media literacy approaches that mainly provide text-based messages. However, more recent studies show that active inoculation can be more effective. For example, online games that involve active participation have been shown to help people resist violent extremist messages.

In addition, most previous research has focused on protecting people from text-based misinformation. Our study instead examines inoculation against multimodal misinformation, such as deepfakes that combine video, audio and images. Although we expected active inoculation to work better for this type of misinformation, our findings show that both passive and active inoculation can help people cope with the threat of deepfakes.

What’s next

Our research shows that inoculation messages can help people recognize and resist deepfakes, but it is still unclear whether these effects last over time. In future studies, we plan to examine the long-term effect of inoculation messages.

We also aim to explore whether inoculation works in other areas beyond politics, including health. For example, how would people respond if a deepfake showed a fake doctor spreading health misinformation? Would earlier inoculation messages help people question and resist such content?

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Bingbing Zhang receives funding from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa.

– ref. ‘Inoculation’ helps people spot political deepfakes, study finds – https://theconversation.com/inoculation-helps-people-spot-political-deepfakes-study-finds-273739

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Claire Leavitt, Assistant Professor of Government, Smith College

President Donald Trump and Congress agreed to separate funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a larger spending bill that enables the federal government to continue operations. They now face a self-imposed deadline of Feb. 13, 2026, to negotiate potential changes to immigration enforcement.

The fact that funding for the department – and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE – has become politically contentious represents a new turn on Capitol Hill.

Funding for ICE has increased substantially over the past year, with the number of its agents more than doubling.

On July 4, 2025, Trump signed a massive tax-and-spending package that increased annual funding for ICE from US$8 billion in 2024 to $28 billion in 2025.

During the first year of Trump’s second term, Republican majorities in the House and Senate have taken a hands-off approach to oversight of what is now the nation’s most highly funded law enforcement agency.

I am a professor of government who studies Congress and its oversight role. Since ICE’s funding increase, the Senate has held just one public hearing on ICE, according to my own unpublished data. Although the House has held a few routine oversight hearings of DHS, none have focused on ICE or Customs and Border Protection.

Traditional role for Congress

Congress holds longtime, well-established constitutional authority to oversee and investigate the executive branch and other political institutions. Having authorized funding for federal programs, it typically – if inconsistently – conducts substantial oversight to ensure its policies are being carried out successfully and as lawmakers originally intended.

Following the January 2026 killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, members of Congress from both parties have called for investigations.

However, “investigations” is a broad term that encompasses several options. The Justice Department announced on Jan. 30, 2026, that it is pursuing a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death. That same day, DHS announced that the FBI is leading the federal probe into his death, with assistance from ICE.

But Congress could also establish an independent, bipartisan commission to examine the killings and make recommendations for laws and regulations to prevent future deaths and ensure quick accountability. Some notable examples of congressional commissions include one that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a 2010 commission that recommended $4 trillion worth of budget changes to address the national debt.

Or Congress could take the lead itself.

Rand Paul, the Republican chair of the primary oversight panel in the Senate, and New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, have asked top immigration officials to testify this month. But other congressional Republicans have remained vague about what shape the investigations should take and which branch of government should lead them.

Who’s in charge of oversight?

The debate over which branch of government should investigate government failures is a long-standing one.

Early in the republic’s history, under President George Washington, a federal militia suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Native American tribes at the Battle of Wabash in 1791. Congress was unsure of its constitutional authority to investigate the disastrous encounter: Did the separation-of-powers system prevent Congress from investigating another, independent branch of government? Or did the Constitution’s system of checks and balances imply that the Washington administration could not credibly investigate itself?

Ultimately, the House opted to establish its own investigative committee, and Washington, setting an important precedent, agreed to turn over requested information.

There are several benefits to Congress leading its own inquiries, whether in lieu of, or in addition to, federal agency investigations. For one, even highly combative committee hearings are valuable arenas for information gathering and processing, helping members of Congress thoroughly understand an issue and thus make informed and effective policy changes.

An in-depth committee investigation of the Minneapolis killings could make it more likely that new restrictions and oversight mechanisms are written into law.

Investigations can be bipartisan

Additionally, Congress’ subpoena power is a legally binding tool that enables committees to draw necessary information from the agencies they are investigating. This information, presented at hearings and in committee reports, becomes part of the historical record and serves as an important resource for future investigations both within and outside Congress, including scholarship.

For instance, the final reports of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack in 2022 and the House Committee on Benghazi in 2016 provide exhaustively detailed timelines of the respective attacks that do not exist anywhere else.

Republican-led investigations into the Minneapolis killings, and continued oversight of ICE and CBP, would also lend credibility to both the party and the independence of the legislative branch.

Political scientists have found that committees are less likely to investigate the executive branch when the president is from their own party. However, significant bipartisan probes do occur even in a highly polarized era. In 2005, for instance, Virginia Republican Rep. Tom Davis launched an inquiry into the George W. Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, despite facing pushback from the White House.

More recently, in 2018, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigated Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s handling of the Flint water crisis in Michigan, earning praise from Democrats on the panel.

Risks of grandstanding

However, while Congress has investigative powers, it does not have any enforcement authority. Congress can recommend criminal charges after an investigation, but only the Justice Department can bring indictments.

There are also significant political risks to committee-led inquiries, particularly public hearings. Political scientists have found that investigations of the executive branch diminish the president’s approval rating.

Additionally, members of Congress often engage in performative outrage and grandstanding during public hearings, which tends to help individual members’ electoral prospects but does little to enhance collective public faith in Congress’ legitimacy or its ability to conduct independent and fact-based inquiries.

Given the continuing partisan divide over ICE and the agency’s increased presence in Minneapolis and other cities, it’s possible that congressional hearings could devolve into rancor and name-calling. However, public opinion polling has found that ICE has become a liability for Trump and the Republican Party.

With the 2026 midterm elections coming up, Republicans in Congress may not be able to afford to stay silent.

Claire Leavitt has received funding from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy.

– ref. Congress has exercised minimal oversight over ICE, but that might change – https://theconversation.com/congress-has-exercised-minimal-oversight-over-ice-but-that-might-change-274396

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mervin XuYang Lim, Ph.D. Student in Chemical Engineering, University of Arizona

The world is looking for more clean water. Intense storms and warmer weather have worsened droughts and reduced the amount of clean water underground and in rivers and lakes on the surface.

Under pressure to provide water for drinking and irrigation, people around the globe are trying to figure out how to save, conserve and reuse water in a variety of ways, including reusing treated sewage wastewater and removing valuable salts from seawater.

But for all the clean water they may produce, those processes, as well as water-intensive industries like mining, manufacturing and energy production, inevitably leave behind a type of liquid called brine: water that contains high concentrations of salt, metals and other contaminants. I’m working on getting the water out of that potential source, too.

The most recent available assessment of global brine production found that it is 25.2 billion gallons a day, enough to fill nearly 60,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools each day. That’s about one-twelfth of daily household water use in the U.S. However, that brine estimate is from 2019; in the years since, brine production is estimated to have increased due to the continued expansion of desalination plants.

That’s a lot of water, if it could be cleaned and made usable.

How is brine disposed?

Today, most brine produced along the coastline is released into the ocean. Inland cities without this option typically leave brine in ponds to evaporate, blend it with other wastewater, or inject it into deep wells for disposal.

However, most of these methods require strict environmental protections and monitoring strategies to reduce harm to the environment.

For instance, the extremely high salt content in brine from desalination plants can kill fish or drive them away, as has happened increasingly since the 1980s off the coast of Bahrain.

Evaporation ponds require specialized liners to prevent the brine from leaching into the ground and polluting groundwater. And when all the water has evaporated, the remaining solids must be promptly removed to prevent them from blowing away as dust in the wind. This happens in nature, too: As the Great Salt Lake in Utah dries up, salty windblown dust has already contributed to significant air pollution, as recorded by the Utah Division of Air Quality.

Brine injected into the earth in Oklahoma, including into wells used for hydraulic fracking of oil and natural gas, was one of several factors that led to a 40-fold increase in earthquake activity in the five-year period from 2008 to 2013, as compared to the preceding 31 years. And wastewater has been documented to leak from the underground wells up to the surface as well.

Emerging treatment technologies

Researchers like me are increasingly exploring brine’s potential not as waste but as a source of water – and of valuable materials, such as sodium, lithium, magnesium and calcium.

Currently, the most effective brine reclamation methods use heat and pressure to boil the water out of brine, capturing the water as vapor and leaving the metals and salts behind as solids. But those systems are expensive to build, energy-intensive to run and physically large.

Other treatment methods come with unique trade-offs. Electrodialysis uses electricity to pull salt and charged particles out of water through special membranes, separating cleaner water from a more concentrated salty stream. This process works best when the water is already relatively clean, because dirt, oils and minerals can quickly clog or damage the membranes, reducing the performance of the equipment.

Membrane distillation, in contrast, heats water so that only water vapor passes through a water-repelling membrane, leaving salts and other contaminants behind. While effective in principle, this approach can be slow, energy-intensive and expensive, limiting its use at larger scale.

A look at smaller, decentralized systems

Smaller systems can be effective, with lower initial costs and quicker start-up processes.

At the University of Arizona, I am leading the testing of a six-step brine reclamation system known as STREAM – for Separation, Treatment, Recovery via Electrochemistry and Membrane – to continuously reclaim municipal brine, which is salty water left over from sewage treatment.

The system combines conventional methods such as ultrafiltration, which removes particles and microbes using fine filters, and reverse osmosis, which removes dissolved salts by forcing water through a dense membrane, alongside an electrolytic cell – a method not typically employed in water treatment.

Our previous study showed that we can recover usable quantities of chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid at one-sixth the cost of purchasing them commercially. And our initial calculations indicated the integrated system can reclaim as much as 90% of the water, greatly reducing the volume of what remains to be disposed. The cleaned water in turn is suitable for drinking after final disinfection using ultraviolet or chlorine.

We are currently building a larger pilot system in Tucson for further study by researchers. We hope to learn if we can use this system to reclaim other sources of brine and study its efficacy in eliminating viruses and bacteria for human consumption.

We have partnered with other researchers from the University of Nevada Reno, the University of Southern California and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help communities in the Southwest secure reliable water supplies by safely reusing municipal wastewater to serve everyday water use.

Mervin XuYang Lim receives funding under Cooperative Agreement Number W9132T-23-2-0001 with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USACE ERDC-CERL).

– ref. Reclaiming water from contaminated brine can increase water supply and reduce environmental harm – https://theconversation.com/reclaiming-water-from-contaminated-brine-can-increase-water-supply-and-reduce-environmental-harm-272232