Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sam Vong, Curator of Asian Pacific American History, Smithsonian Institution

In 2005, Antonio Somera, a Filipino American member of the Legionarios del Trabajo, a Masonic fraternal order, stumbled across a trove of mysterious-looking containers while he was cleaning out the basement of the Daguhoy Lodge in Stockton, California.

The containers, which had been abandoned for decades, included more than a dozen steamer trunks – large luggage chests designed for long-distance travel – and a handful of suitcases dating to the 1910s.

They belonged to former Legionarios del Trabajo members who at some point lived in the lodge but had passed away. Fraternal brothers packed their personal belongings to memorialize the deceased and hoped that surviving family members would later reclaim the objects.

These unusual time capsules and their contents tell a largely forgotten history of the men and women who had left the Philippines in the 1910s to work in Hawaii’s sugar industry and later settled in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Affectionately dubbed “Little Manila,” south Stockton became an important hub for one of the largest communities of Filipinos outside the Philippines.

Along with my curatorial assistant, Ethan Johanson, we studied the fascinating objects and photographs found in the trunks to tell the story of this largely forgotten cohort of migrants.

Here are five objects that capture the breadth and depth of life and work in California, Hawaii and other states for Filipino migrants. They’re among those featured in an exhibition created by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Titled, “How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American Stories,” the exhibition explores the making of the Filipino American community in Stockton between the 1910s and 1970s.

1. The steamer trunk

This steamer trunk formerly belonged to Anastacio Atig Omandam, a worker who arrived in Honolulu from the Philippine province Negros Oriental in January 1916.

In his twenties, Omandam embarked on a two- to three-week voyage across the Pacific Ocean, leaving his rural and impoverished hometown to earn money to send home.

Omandam was part of a group of mostly young, single men who were recruited by sugar plantation companies as early as 1906 to work in Hawaii’s booming sugar industry. Between 1906 and 1935, thousands of men – and later women – left their hometowns in the Ilocos and Visayas regions of the Philippines for Hawaii, toiling on plantations alongside other immigrant workers.

After the United States defeated Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War, the Philippines was under U.S. colonial rule until 1935.

Filipinos living under American rule and in U.S. territories were designated as U.S. nationals, an ambiguous legal status. It allowed Filipinos to migrate relatively freely within U.S. territories, but they lacked constitutional protections and privileges like citizenship and voting.

Omandam’s steamer trunk is emblematic of the trunks discovered by Somera in 2005. Omandam likely bought the trunk secondhand in the Philippines or Hawaii. While the origins of the trunk remain a mystery, it traveled with Omandam from job to job, reflecting the life of a migrant worker continuously on the move. Many of these trunks – Omandam’s included – contained handwritten correspondence written in beautiful cursive, photographs, postcards, work tools, garments and paystubs.

They were, in essence, time capsules of each of these men’s lives.

2. An asparagus knife

The large, unusual-looking metal instrument found in one trunk is a knife that farmworkers used to harvest asparagus.

During the harvesting season, typically between February and June, workers wielded this knife, using the sharp edge of the forked blade to pierce approximately six inches (15 centimeters) below the soil to cut the root of the asparagus.

Harvesting asparagus demanded dexterity and speed. Workers needed to constantly bend over to cut and collect the produce as they moved up and down the rows. This repetitive and backbreaking motion earned Filipino farmworkers the derogatory label “stoop labor.”

After a series of restrictive immigration laws barred Chinese, Japanese and other immigrant groups between the 1870s and 1920s, growers and agribusiness turned to hiring Filipinos and Mexicans to harvest seasonal crops such as lettuce, grapes and asparagus, among others.

When the harvesting season was over, Filipino farmworkers migrated to other West Coast states to harvest apples, hops and grapes. Others went to Alaska to can salmon.

The asparagus knife was found among the containers in the basement, alongside other grafting and pruning knives. These tools – still carrying the soil from which they were tilled – represent the work of the immigrant farm workers of all backgrounds who helped build California’s agriculture industry, which continues to feed the nation today.

3. Three-piece suits

Three-piece suits were found in nearly all the steamer trunks, along with Stetson hats, bow-ties and other fashionable accessories from the 1920s and 1930s.

Despite earning meager wages, most Filipino farmworkers saved their hard-earned money to purchase at least one tailored three-piece suit. Men donned these stylish garments to attend Sunday mass, dinners and taxi dance halls – where they could pay a small fee to dance with a professional dancer – or merely to strut their stuff down the streets of Stockton’s Little Manila.

Because Americans often looked down upon agricultural workers as uncultured and illiterate – “little brown monkeys” was a common slur – Filipinos resisted these negative characterizations by presenting themselves like the Hollywood movie stars they saw at the cinema. They understood the power of self-presentation: By embracing popular American styles, they sought to command respect and dignity.

They also wore these suits to pose for fancy photographs that were sent back home to the Philippines as a way to display affluence and social mobility – and to entice their compatriots to join them in the U.S.

Not everyone was enchanted. Some white Americans viewed these slick, handsomely dressed Filipino men as a sexual threat that could “steal” their women.

4. A pageant dress

This sequined dress belonged to Barbara Nambatac, a longtime resident of Livingston, Calif., who grew up among the “manongs,” a kinship title meaning older brother often used when referring to this early generation of Filipino migrants.

Her Filipino father was a cook who served food to Filipino and Mexican field hands on farms throughout California’s Central Valley, where he later met Nambatac’s Mexican mother.

In the 19th century and into the 20th century, California’s anti-miscegenation laws prohibited whites from marrying outside their race. At the same time, the shared experiences of Mexican and Filipino farmworkers often led to relationships between members of the two migrant groups.

When she was 21, Nambatac’s father, who was a member of the Legionarios del Trabajo in Stockton, saved his modest salary to buy the dress from the Philippines and registered her in a beauty pageant that helped raise funds for the lodge. She ultimately won first place.

In Stockton’s Little Manila, pageants reinforced the importance of women in the community. Since women were discouraged from migrating, there was a gender imbalance in Filipino American communities that persisted for decades.

Filipinas who were able to migrate to the United States were important pillars in Stockton’s Filipino American community and assumed multiple roles. Women labored tirelessly alongside men in the fields, performed domestic work in households, advised young men to save money and go to school, and built and maintained networks that sustained local communities and transpacific ties back home in the Philippines.

Although the gender disparity was stark in Little Manila before the 1960s, the presence of women and girls ensured the survival of Filipino American families.

5. A pillowcase

This pillowcase was one of three found in Anastacio Omandam’s steamer trunk.

It’s embroidered with floral patterns and a poignant message – “How Can You Forget Me” – which inspired the exhibition’s title. The pillowcases – along with letters and photographs – evoke the sentimental messages that connected friends, families and lovers separated by a vast ocean.

In the case of Omandam, a loved one from the Philippines likely sent him the pillowcase. The lack of punctuation is interesting: It serves as neither a question nor a declaration, but nonetheless urges Omandam to never let go of his memories of home.

In the same way, I hope the exhibition will implore visitors to never forget this generation of men and women who paved a path for other Filipino immigrants. More than 4.4 million Americans identify as having Philippine ancestry, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

These objects reflect the stories of ordinary people who were resourceful, creative, resilient and filled with hope in the face of discrimination, racism and legal exclusion.

The odds were constantly stacked against them. And yet they persevered – each strike into the soil, each coin saved to save up for a new suit, each lodge meeting and each beauty pageant taking them one step closer to forging a place for themselves in the American story.

Sam Vong 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. Large trunks discovered in a basement offer a window into the lives and struggles of early Filipino migrants – https://theconversation.com/large-trunks-discovered-in-a-basement-offer-a-window-into-the-lives-and-struggles-of-early-filipino-migrants-265654

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jaime Schultz, Professor of Kinesiology, Penn State

In an event billed as tennis’s latest “Battle of the Sexes,” Aryna Sabalenka, the No. 1-ranked women’s tennis player in the world, will take on Nick Kyrgios, who’s currently ranked No. 673 on the men’s tour, on Dec. 28, 2025, in Dubai.

“This is about respect, rivalry and reimagining what equality in sport can look like,” explained Stuart Duguid, who, along with tennis great Naomi Osaka, co-founded Evolve, the sports agency putting on the event.

“I’ll try my best to kick his ass,” Sabalenka said during a September 2025 press conference.

“She’s not going to beat me,” Kyrgios responded. “Do you really think I have to try 100%?”

Evolve has promoted the Dubai event as a sequel to the iconic 1973 “Battle of the Sexes,” in which Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs.

But as critical scholars of sport, we see important differences between the two contests. For one, there are the rules: different court dimensions, service restrictions and scoring systems. What’s more, the two events’ political and cultural contexts set them even further apart. While King’s victory is viewed as a feminist triumph over entrenched sexism, neither Sabalenka nor Kyrgios seem to be playing for anything beyond the court.

It makes us wonder whether women – and women’s sports more specifically – have anything to gain from this latest battle.

Putting ‘women’s lib’ on the map

The feminist movement of the early 1970s saw American women fight for better rights, opportunities, rewards, reproductive freedoms and bodily autonomy. They also sought access to and equality in sports. Women’s tennis led the way, as King and others bravely formed their own tour, unionized and negotiated for equal pay at the U.S. Open.

Riggs – a 55-year-old ex-champion and self-proclaimed “male chauvinist pig” – was a noisy antagonist. He maintained that better pay should go to men like him on the senior tour, not to women. To prove it – and to bully his way back into the limelight – Riggs pestered the 29-year-old King to play him.

“You not only cannot beat a top male player,” he needled, “you can’t beat me, a tired old man.”

King refused.

“We didn’t need him; we were making it on our own merits,” she later explained

But when Riggs trounced the No. 1 women’s player, Margaret Court, in May 1973, King, then ranked No. 2, felt she had no choice.

“Marge blew it,” she told reporters. “I’m going to put women’s lib where it should be.”

King rose to the occasion. Before 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and another 90 million television viewers, she walloped Riggs in three straight sets. Her victory took on an even larger significance, becoming a symbol of what women can accomplish when given the chance.

“It wasn’t about tennis,” King later assessed. “It was about social change.”

The apolitical star vs. the ‘bad boy’

So what, then, is the new “battle” about?

King has yet to comment on the 2025 event, but she is a fan of Sabalenka’s game.

“What I love about you is that when you come out to play, you bring all of yourself,” King told the four-time Grand Slam champion after her 2024 U.S. Open victory.

Off the court, however, the two women seem to have little in common.

King has always maintained that sports are political; Sabalenka has distanced herself from that position. When asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, the Belarusian explained, “I don’t want sport to be involved in politics, because I’m just a 25-year-old tennis player.”

King never argued that women were better players than the men. But “from a show-biz standpoint,” she clarified in her 1974 autobiography, “I felt we put on as good a performance as the men – sometimes better – and that that’s what people paid to see.”

Sabalenka, in contrast, once told a reporter that she prefers watching men’s tennis because “it’s more interesting” than the women’s game.

Comments like Sabalenka’s throw sand into the gears of the ongoing struggle for gender equity, to which King remains committed. Although all four Grand Slam events now offer equal prize money, disparities persist at lower-level tournaments.

At the 2024 Italian Open, for instance, men competed for a prize pool of US$8.5 million. The women’s equivalent was $5.5 million. That same year, women’s prize money at the Canadian Open totaled $2.5 million, while the men split $5.9 million. Men still receive better scheduling and court assignments, more media coverage and more lucrative sponsorships. As former No-2-ranked women’s tennis player Ons Jabeur put it, it’s not “just a question of money, but also respect.”

Meanwhile, Kyrgios, like Riggs more than half a century ago, has spoken out against equal pay for women players.

In fact, some might say Kyrgios’ sexism makes Riggs’ seem almost quaint. In 2015, he was fined $10,000 after making vulgar comments about his opponent’s girlfriend during a match. In 2021, he pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-girlfriend after pushing her during an argument.

Kyrgios has “gone to all lengths” to distance himself from overtly misogynist influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who have been criminally charged with human trafficking, rape and assault. But this was only after Kyrgios faced significant backlash for expressing “low-key” love for the brothers and reposting Andrew on social platform X for “speaking facts as usual.”

Kyrgios – again, like Riggs – is also struggling to remain relevant.

By all accounts, he is a tremendously talented player who has yet to live up to his potential. Plagued with wrist and knee injuries, Kyrgios has competed in only six tour-level matches in the past three years: winning one, losing four and retiring in another. Consequently, the 2022 Wimbledon finalist, once ranked in the top 20, is better known as a “bad boy of tennis” who smashes rackets, makes lewd comments and gestures, tanks matches and verbally abuses umpires.

A lose-lose for women’s sports?

Kyrgios’ showdown with Sabalenka may be entertaining. But for women’s sports, it seems like a lose-lose.

If Sabalenka wins, critics will likely claim it’s because she had every advantage. Evolve has modified the rules to make her side of the court 9% smaller than Kyrgios’ in both length and width. The dimensions are based on Evolve’s calculation that the top women players move 9% slower than their male counterparts, although there is no published data to support the claim.

To further mitigate Kyrgios’ reported “power and speed advantage,” both players will be limited to just one serve. Unlike King and Riggs’ best-of-five sets, Sabalenka and Kyrgios will play best-of-three. Split sets between the two competitors will result in a 10-point tiebreaker.

A Kyrgios victory will only bolster arguments that the best woman cannot compete with the 673rd-ranked man, even when the rules are bent to her favor. We could see those arguments being weaponized against women’s sports more generally, which remain underresourced and undervalued.

There’s also the question of the venue.

The 2025 event will take place in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE government has been accused of egregious human rights abuses, which include gender discrimination, the criminalization of same-sex relations, and clamping down on freedom of speech and the media. Hosting high-profile sporting events distracts from these issues while cleansing the UAE’s public image in what’s known as “sportswashing.”

What does it mean to host a tennis “Battle of the Sexes” in a country where women are battling for basic human rights?

The 2017 Hollywood film “Battle of the Sexes” reaffirmed the importance of the King-Riggs contest.

Barring some surprise twist, no one will make a movie about the Sabalenka-Kyrgios duel in Dubai. We see it as nothing more than a publicity stunt and cash grab for Sabalenka, Kyrgios and, above all, Evolve. If this is “reimagining what equality in sport can look like,” as the organizers claim, then it is equality without substance.

And that is no battle at all.

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. Tennis is set for a ‘Battle of the Sexes’ sequel – with no movement behind it – https://theconversation.com/tennis-is-set-for-a-battle-of-the-sexes-sequel-with-no-movement-behind-it-269590

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Stacy Shaw, Assistant Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

The holiday season is often painted as an idyllic vision of rest, conjuring images of warm beverages and bountiful time with loved ones. But many people have trouble unwinding at this time of year. Why do the December holidays offer the promise of respite but never seem to deliver? And is more restorative rest possible during this busy season?

I am a psychologist who studies how rest supports learning, creativity and well-being. Sleep is often the first thing that many people associate with rest, but humans also require restorative downtime when awake. These active rest periods include physical, social and creative experiences that can occur throughout the day – not just while mindlessly scrolling on the couch.

When holiday stresses begin to snowball, rest periods replenish depleted psychological resources, reduce stress and promote well-being. But reaping the full benefits of rest and leisure requires more than a slow morning or a mug of hot cocoa. It’s also about intentionally scheduling active recovery periods that energize us and leave us feeling restored.

That’s because good rest needs to be anticipated, planned and refined.

Holiday stress

The winter holiday season can take a toll on well-being. Financial stress increases, and daily routines are disrupted. Add the stress of travel, plus a dash of challenging family dynamics, and it’s not surprising that emotional well-being declines during the holiday season.

Quality rest and leisure periods can buffer these stressors, promoting recovery and well-being. They also can help reduce psychological strain and prolong positive emotions as people return to work.

Effective rest comes in many forms, from going outdoors for a walk to socializing, listening to music or engaging in creative hobbies. These activities may feel like distractions, but they serve important mental health functions.

For instance, research finds that walking in nature results in diminished activation in the area of the brain associated with sadness and ruminating thoughts. Walks in nature are also associated with reduced anxiety and stress.

Other studies have shown that activities such as playing the piano or doing calligraphy significantly lower cortisol, a stress hormone. In fact, some of the most promising interventions for depression involve participation in pleasant leisure activities.

Not all idle time is restorative

So why does it feel so hard to get good rest during the holidays?

One of the most robust findings from psychologists and researchers who study leisure is that the effectiveness of rest periods depends on how satisfying they feel to the individual. This might sound obvious, but people often spend their free time doing things that are not satisfying.

For example, a famous 2002 study of how people spent their time found that the most popular form of leisure was watching television. But participants also rated TV time as their least enjoyable activity. Those who watched more than four hours of TV a day rated it as even less enjoyable than those who watched less than two hours a day.

A few years ago, my colleagues and I collected data from college students and found that students reported turning to mindless distractions, such as social media, at the end of the day, but that it usually did not leave them feeling reenergized or restored. Although this study was specifically about college students, when I presented the findings to the larger research team, one of my collaborators said, “It really makes you think about yourself, doesn’t it?” There were silent nods around the room.

Planning for good rest

To combat the pitfall of poor rest cycles, science suggests planning for active rest and pleasant activities, and carrying through with those plans. A large body of research shows that designing, scheduling and engaging in enjoyable activities is effective at lowering symptoms of depression and anxiety.

For the holiday season, this might mean following an afternoon of shopping with a recovery period reading a book in a quiet place, or going for a walk after opening gifts instead of immediately shifting into cleaning mode. By following a schedule, not a mood, research suggests that people can break cycles of poor rest and inactivity and achieve greater recovery and well-being.

Wrestling with guilt

Even with perfectly planned and executed rest periods, guilt can loom. Leisure guilt is a psychological construct that encompasses feelings of distress about spending time doing things that are relaxing rather than productive. It can reduce enjoyment of leisure, undercutting one of the mechanisms that link rest with well-being.

During the holidays, this problem may become even more pronounced. The season brings changes to daily routines, daylight levels and temperature, and diets. All of these shifts can deplete people’s energy levels. High expectations during the holidays may make guilt an even bigger threat to rest.

If the answer to poor-quality rest cycles is planned active rest periods, then what is the solution to feelings of guilt?

Lower expectations, immersive rest and acceptance

Research on leisure guilt is in its infancy, but my own struggles have shown me a few ways to resist the pressure to be productive every spare minute. Here are some tips to fight back against the flawed belief that rest is just laziness in disguise, during the holidays and beyond.

First, I work to convince myself and my family members to lower expectations for our seasonal activities. Not every baked cookie needs to be individually frosted and decorated, and not every gift has to be wrapped with a perfect bow. By agreeing to lower our expectations, we eliminate extraneous work and the guilt of feeling that there is more to be done.

Second, I’ve found that restful activities that provide a strong feeling of immersion – playing video games, going for walks and playing with my young nieces and nephews – are a lot more restorative than scrolling on my phone or watching TV on the couch. These diversions require my full attention and prevent me from thinking about things such as my overflowing email inbox or unfinished household chores.

Finally, when I do experience leisure guilt, I accept the feeling and try to move on. During high-stress situations, accepting negative emotions rather than avoiding them can reduce depressive symptoms.

Humans need restorative periods of downtime during the holidays and beyond, but this does not always come easily or naturally to everyone. Through small adjustments and intentional actions, good rest can be within reach this holiday season.

Stacy Shaw 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. Rest is essential during the holidays, but it may mean getting active, not crashing on the couch – https://theconversation.com/rest-is-essential-during-the-holidays-but-it-may-mean-getting-active-not-crashing-on-the-couch-270396

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Laura Beers, Professor of History, American University

During a press conference on Dec. 11, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced there was good news on the state of the economy.

“Inflation as measured by the overall CPI has slowed to an average 2.5% pace,” she said, referring to the consumer price index. “Real wages are increasing roughly $1,200 dollars for the average worker.”

When CNN political correspondent Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt pivoted to an attack. Not on Collins, a frequent target of White House ire, but on Leavitt’s predecessor in the Biden White House, Democrat Jen Psaki.

Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “utter lies.” In contrast, Leavitt insisted, “Everything I’m telling you is the truth backed by real, factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it ’cause you want to push untrue narratives about the president.”

The “real, factual data” that underpinned Leavitt’s statement was specious at best. The actual inflation rate for September was 3%, not the 2.5% figure cherry-picked from economic data. The rise in real wages? CNN business editor David Goldman writes that in the past year, U.S. workers have experienced “the lowest annual paycheck growth that Americans have had since May 2021.”

I’m a historian who has written about the enduring legacy of George Orwell’s ideas about truth and freedom. Listening to Leavitt assert a “truth” so obviously discordant with people’s lives, I was reminded of the repeated pronouncements from the Ministry of Plenty in Orwell’s “1984.”

“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen,” Orwell wrote. “As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”

The novel’s doomed hero, Winston Smith, works in the Records Department that produces these fraudulent statistics – figures that are so far divorced from reality that they “had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie.”

In the world of “1984,” not only are statistics invented, they are continually reinvented to serve the needs of Big Brother’s regime at any given moment: “All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.”

Transparency as doublespeak

The lack of transparency depicted in “1984” has an uncanny echo in our current political moment, despite Leavitt’s repeated assertions that President Donald Trump is the “most transparent president in history.”

Leavitt has made that claim countless times, including in her public defense of Trump’s “Quiet, Piggy!” dismissal of Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey last month.

In Leavitt’s usage, “transparency” has become a form of Orwellian “doublespeak,” a word or phrase which through the process of “doublethink” had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning.

“Doublethink,” in Orwell’s writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”

Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother’s authoritarian regime, to accept that “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

And it is the mechanism that allowed Leavitt to proclaim, in defending Trump’s unwillingness to release the Epstein files, “This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever.” That claim was pronounced “fabulously audacious” by The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, in a story headlined “Nothing to see here: Trump press chief in full denial mode over Epstein.”

Making ‘lies sound truthful and murder respectable’

In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Over the past 10 months, Leavitt has, among other things, claimed that the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID – provided a grant of $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. Not true. She has misrepresented the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as fully eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. In reality, deductions for these are capped. She claimed that Trump coined the motto “peace through strength.” He didn’t. The phrase has been in circulation for decades, used most prominently by Ronald Reagan during his presidency.

And she recently sought to delegitimize U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and colleagues’ plea to servicemen and women not to obey illegal orders by suggesting tautologically that “all lawful orders are presumed to be legal by our servicemembers,” and hence Kelly’s plea could only serve to provoke “disorder and chaos.”

All governments lie. But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals.

Laura Beers 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. Karoline Leavitt’s White House briefing doublethink is straight out of Orwell’s ‘1984’ – https://theconversation.com/karoline-leavitts-white-house-briefing-doublethink-is-straight-out-of-orwells-1984-270675

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Graham Bodie, Professor of Media and Communication, University of Mississippi

The Oct. 27, 2025, interview between former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and political streamer Nick Fuentes created a rare public divide inside the MAGA movement.

Critics say Carlson gave Fuentes a national platform to advance his antisemitic and white nationalist views. Some conservatives, including President Donald Trump and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, defended the conversation as necessary to understand a growing segment of the movement.

These reactions may seem incompatible, but both contain slices of the truth. Public debates about extreme views often pull us toward simple binaries – platform or censor, engage or avoid – when the real issue is how the engagement is structured and the purpose it serves.

The current tension raises a broader question that extends beyond any single interview: When does a conversation with someone who holds extreme views illuminate their beliefs, which could serve the public interest, and when might it risk being interpreted as validation?

As a communication scholar who studies how people engage across deep divides, I see this as a question not about whether to interact with individuals who espouse extremist views, but how to structure that engagement and to what end.

Engaging ideas does not mean endorsing

When public figures say they are “just asking questions” or having a “respectful debate,” it’s easy to assume they believe that all conversation is valuable. Indeed, Carlson opened his interview by claiming he is simply “trying to understand” what Fuentes “affirmatively believes.”

In practice, however, the format and tone of an interview do much of the ethical work. Some conversations interrogate ideas. Others normalize them, meaning they make extreme claims sound ordinary or socially acceptable – in other words, treating them as just another position in public debate rather than as views outside widely shared norms. A conversation that presents all viewpoints as morally equivalent risks signaling that even extreme positions belong within normal political discourse.

This is the concern raised by Carlson’s interview. Fuentes has made a series of claims about Jewish people that mainstream conservatives have rejected for decades. Although Carlson pushed back at one point, saying Fuentes’s views are “against my Christian faith,” the overall tone of polite exchange allowed some listeners to interpret the discussion as a meeting of two legitimate positions rather than as a critical examination of ideas widely understood as bigoted.

Listening is not neutrality

One explanation for these differing interpretations comes from a recent series of experiments showing speakers often confuse “active listening” with agreement. Even when they had maintained eye contact and signaled attention using short phrases like “I see,” listeners who disagreed were consistently judged as worse listeners. Because people tend to assume their own views are correct, they often infer that anyone who disagrees must not have listened well.

This psychological tendency complicates how the public interprets interviews like Carlson’s. Conversations can sound civil while failing to challenge harmful claims, leaving listeners with the mistaken belief that those claims are widely held.

Listeners operating from a humanizing mode attempt to understand the person behind the belief, asking questions such as “When did you first encounter this idea?” or “What was happening in your life at the time?” or “What concerns does this belief address for you?” A decade ago, a Dutch study found that extremist views often grow from fear, misinformation, isolation and a desire for belonging, along with other demographic, personality and social factors. Understanding those roots helps explain how individuals arrive at certain worldviews.

But understanding is not the same as acceptance. Good listening does not have to signal agreement.

Examples of this kind of engagement exist outside politics. Former extremists such as Christian Picciolini, who founded the Free Radicals Project, and musician Daryl Davis, known for building relationships with members of the Ku Klux Klan, have shown that humanizing conversations can help people leave hate groups without normalizing the ideas those groups promote. Their work illustrates that it is possible to confront harmful beliefs while still recognizing the humanity of the people who hold them.

Moving beyond just calling out

The ongoing debate about Carlson and Fuentes also reflects a broader tension in terms of how society responds to harmful speech.

Calling someone out, usually in public, focuses on blame. “Calling someone in,” a term developed by scholar and activist Loretta Ross, emphasizes private accountability and the possibility of correction. In a media setting, this might look like an interviewer saying, “I want to understand what you mean by that claim, because some viewers may hear it as targeting an entire group. Can you clarify how you see the people affected by this?” This approach challenges the idea while signaling curiosity about the speaker’s reasoning.

A similar approach, described by authors Justin Michael Williams and Shelly Tygielski, is known as “calling forward.” This framework focuses less on correcting a single remark, less on past mistakes and more on future growth by inviting reflection about how a belief fits within a person’s broader values. In practical terms, calling forward means setting clear boundaries around unacceptable beliefs while still recognizing an individual’s potential to change.

Using a “calling forward” approach, Carlson might have followed his mild pushback that Fuentes’s ideas are against his “Christian faith” by exploring how Fuentes understands the tension between his political claims and widely held moral or religious principles.

By stating directly when a claim is false or discriminatory but still allowing the conversation to explore how someone came to that belief, the interview places the idea in a fuller social and psychological context. The emphasis shifts to curiosity paired with accountability, and it can encourage someone to examine the roots and consequences of their beliefs without framing the exchange as a clash between equal positions.

Most people will never interview a national figure or decide whether to put an extremist on camera. Ideally, most of us won’t be faced with the burden of listening to views that question our or others’ humanity.

Even so, each of us likely has a relationship with someone who holds a belief we find troubling. More broadly, families, classrooms and community groups all face moments when someone introduces an idea that others find threatening.

The Carlson–Fuentes interview has become a flash point partly because it forces a public reckoning with a private question: What is the cost of engagement, and what is the cost of refusing it? Understanding that distinction requires paying attention not only to who is invited to speak, but also to how the ways in which we listen fundamentally shape the conversation.

Graham Bodie 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. Shaping the conversation means offering context to extreme ideas, not just a platform – https://theconversation.com/shaping-the-conversation-means-offering-context-to-extreme-ideas-not-just-a-platform-269883

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Carly Thomsen, Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing, Rice University

The latest Supreme Court case related to abortion is not technically about the legal right to have one. When the court heard oral arguments on Dec. 2, 2025, the word “abortion” came up only three times. The first instance was more than an hour into the 82-minute hearing.

Instead, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc. v. Platkin hinges on whether First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association give a chain of five crisis pregnancy centers in New Jersey the right to protect its donor records from disclosure to state authorities. The centers are Christian nonprofits that try to stop pregnant women from obtaining abortions.

There are more than 2,500 of them across the United States.

I’ve done extensive research regarding crisis pregnancy centers, and I’ve written about that work in more than a dozen articles in academic journals, books and the media.

Resembling doctors’ offices in appearance only

Many critics of the centers call them “fake clinics” because the centers appear to be medical facilities when they are not.

Often, their waiting rooms look like those at doctors’ offices, and their volunteers wear white lab coats or medical scrubs. And they offer free services that people think of as medical, such as pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. But these pregnancy tests are typically the same kind that drugstores sell over the counter.

They’re able to function without medical professionals because it’s generally legal in the U.S. to operate ultrasound machines without any specialized training. They ask clients to read their own pregnancy tests so they can avoid laws regarding medical licensing.

Under current law, crisis pregnancy centers don’t need to tell their clients that they are not medical clinics. Nor must they disclose that they don’t provide abortions or birth control.

After California enacted a law that would force the centers to provide their clients with accurate information, the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that it was unconstitutional.

The centers also don’t have to tell their clients that they are not bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, or other patient privacy laws. They don’t have to say that few, if any, members of their staff are licensed medical professionals or that their ultrasounds are not typically intended to diagnose anything.

Crisis pregnancy centers far outnumber the 765 abortion clinics operating across the United States as of 2024 – two years after the Supreme Court allowed states to ban abortion in its Dobbs v. Jackson ruling.

Deceptive by design

The centers’ deceptive tactics appear before clients walk through their doors.

A team of researchers found that 91.3% of crisis pregnancy center websites misleadingly imply that they provide medical services.

In many cases, as I’ve previously explained, these centers are branded confusingly, with names suggesting they are clinics that provide abortions.

Their websites and mobile vans are often emblazoned with medical imagery.

Many operate near abortion clinics, adding to the confusion.

Researchers found that 80% of crisis pregnancy center websites include false information about abortion, including that it is linked to mental health issues, infertility and breast cancer.

All of these claims have been disproved. Many major medical organizations have issued statements to this effect, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Psychological Association and the Mayo Clinic.

In response to these concerns, crisis pregnancy centers often reference the goods and services they offer to women in need. But the resources they offer are often slim – far less than what is necessary to care for a baby – and may be contingent on participation in the Christian centers’ classes on parenting and other topics.

First Choice, when asked for comment, said that it “provides women and families free, compassionate care, including ultrasounds, educational resources, baby clothes and food.”

First Choice’s practices

First Choice, the organization that brought this case, uses many of these tactics.

Four of its five centers in New Jersey are located within one mile of an abortion clinic.

Its homepage includes a photo of a woman dressed like a medical professional, wearing teal scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck.

The chain’s name, First Choice Women’s Resource Center, uses the language of “choice,” which has long been associated with the abortion rights movement.

First Choice’s website suggests that abortion can lead to depression, eating disorders and addiction. It makes claims about the prevalence of what it calls “post-abortion stress disorder,” a nonmedical term used by anti-abortion activists who have sought to falsely frame abortion as if it is something most women regret.

In reality, long-term studies show that 95% of women who have had abortions believe they made the right decision.

State consumer fraud investigation

In November 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin began investigating First Choice Women’s Resource Center to see whether the nonprofit had violated state consumer fraud laws by misrepresenting its services to clients, donors and the public.

Part of that probe, which was interrupted by the litigation that culminated in this Supreme Court case, included requesting documents about the center’s donors.

The next month, First Choice sued Platkin in federal court.
The lawsuit asserted that the First Amendment protects the privacy of First Choice’s donors.

A district court and appeals and court determined that this case should be heard in state court.

But instead of pursuing the case at the state level, First Choice appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which decided in June 2025 to take the case.

New Jersey’s fraud investigation and the “sweeping subpoena” it issued “may chill First Amendment freedoms,” said attorney Erin Hawley, when she argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of First Choice.

Following oral arguments, Platkin released a statement that said “First Choice – a crisis pregnancy center operating in New Jersey – has for years refused to answer questions about its operations in our state and the potential misrepresentations it has been making.”

Analyzing training manuals

Many crisis pregnancy centers like First Choice are affiliated with large networks that provide training materials.

For example, First Choice is affiliated with Heartbeat International, a Christian anti-abortion global network, which says that it has 45,000 active volunteers. Because those volunteers undergo training, I’ve been learning more about the centers by examining the network’s volunteer and staff manuals.

I’ve analyzed nearly 1,600 pages of these materials put together by large anti-abortion networks, including Heartbeat International. Along the way, I’ve tracked medical misinformation and references to confidentiality, privacy and data retention.

These training guides instruct volunteers to highlight the “medical services” their center provides and to omit “Christian language” from their branding and materials.

But the manuals I examined indicate that advancing their religious beliefs, rather than providing health care, is the centers’ primary goal. One manual says, “Heartbeat International is convinced that the loving outreach of a pregnancy center in the name of Jesus Christ is the most valuable ‘service’ provided, no matter what else is on the list of services.”

Heartbeat International’s Talking About Abortion manual includes medical misinformation about the supposed risks of having an abortion, such as cancer and mortality risks. It encourages volunteers to share these claims with clients.

None of that information, which includes official-sounding statistics, is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research.

Client privacy not protected

Although First Choice sued in part due to concerns about its donors’ privacy, crisis pregnancy centers do not necessarily protect the privacy of the health data they collect from their clients.

The training manuals use the language of HIPAA, referencing the policy itself or its protections of private medical data. At the same time, the manuals inform volunteers that crisis pregnancy centers are “not governed by HIPAA” precisely because they are not medical clinics.

Instead, the manuals make clear that the centers can offer clients the opportunity to request confidentiality. But as stated in Heartbeat International’s Medical Essentials training manual, they “are under no obligation to accept or abide” by that request.

To New Jersey Attorney General Platkin, these kinds of approaches seemed worthy of investigation.

Fewer obstacles ahead?

Should the Supreme Court majority rule in favor of First Choice, I believe states may have more trouble trying to investigate crisis pregnancy centers’ practices, while anti-abortion networks may face even fewer obstacles to their efforts to publicize medical misinformation.

Indeed, Aimee Huber, First Choice’s executive director, has said she hopes other states would “back off” any other efforts to probe crisis pregnancy centers.

But based on my 20 years of experience researching crisis pregnancy centers, I also believe that this case can be helpful for abortion rights supporters because it shows that the crisis pregnancy center industry understands that greater public awareness of its practices may restrict its power.

Heartbeat International did not respond to a request for comment by The Conversation.

Carly Thomsen consults for Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. She has contributed to the Public Leadership Institute’s policy playbook regarding crisis pregnancy centers and she has testified in support of Vermont’s legislation regulating crisis pregnancy centers.

– ref. Supreme Court case about ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ highlights debate over truthful advertising standards – https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-case-about-crisis-pregnancy-centers-highlights-debate-over-truthful-advertising-standards-271254

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Arlene Stein, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University

Masked officers conduct immigration raids. National Guard troops patrol American cities, and protesters decry their presence as a “fascist takeover.” White supremacists openly proclaim racist and antisemitic views.

Is the United States sliding into fascism? It’s a question that divides a good portion of the country today.

Embracing a belief in American exceptionalism – the idea that America is a unique and morally superior country – some historians suggest that “it can’t happen here,” echoing the satirical title of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 book about creeping fascism in America. The social conditions required for fascism to take root do not exist in the U.S., these historians say.

Still, while fascist ideas never found a foothold among the majority of Americans, they exerted considerable influence during the period between the first and second world wars. Extremist groups like the Silver Shirts, the Christian Front, the Black Legion and the Ku Klux Klan claimed hundreds of thousands of members. Together they glorified a white Christian nation purified of Jews, Black Americans, immigrants and communists.

During the 1930s and early ’40s, fascist ideas were promoted and cheered on American soil by groups such as the pro-Nazi German American Bund, which staged a mass rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, displaying George Washington’s portrait alongside swastikas.

The Bund also operated lodges, storefronts, summer camps, beer halls and newspapers across the country and denounced the “melting pot.” It encouraged boycotts and street brawls against Jews and leftists and forged links to Germany’s Nazi party.

Yet the Bund and other far-right groups have largely vanished from public memory, even in communities where they once enjoyed popularity. As a sociologist of collective memory and identity, I wanted to know why that is the case.

The Bund in New Jersey

My analysis of hundreds of oral histories of people who grew up in New Jersey in the 1930s and ’40s, where the German American Bund enjoyed a particularly strong presence, suggests that witnesses saw them as insignificant, “un-American” and unworthy of remembrance.

But the people who rallied with the Bund for a white, Christian nation were ordinary citizens. They were mechanics and shopkeepers, churchgoers and small businessmen, and sometimes elected officials. They frequented diners, led PTA meetings and went to church. They were American.

When they were interviewed decades later, many of those who had seen Bundists up close in their communities remembered the uniforms, the swastika armbands, the marching columns. They recalled the local butcher who quietly displayed sympathy for Nazism, the Bund’s boycotts of Jewish businesses, and the street brawls at Bund rallies.

German American interviewees, who remember firsthand the support the Bund enjoyed before the U.S. entered World War II, 50 years later laughed at family members and neighbors who once supported the organization. Even Jewish interviewees who recalled fearful encounters with Bundists during that period tended to minimize the threat in retrospect. Like their German American counterparts, they framed the Bund as deviant and ephemeral. Few believed the group, and the ideas for which it stood, were significant.

I believe the German Americans’ laughter decades after the war was over, and after the revelations of the mass murder of European Jews, may have been a way for them to distance themselves from feelings of shame or discomfort. As cognitive psychologists show, people tend to erase or minimize inconvenient or painful facts that may threaten their sense of self.

Collective memories are also highly selective. They are influenced by the groups – nation, community, family – in which they are members. In other words, the past is always shaped by the needs of the present.

After World War II, for example, some Americans reframed the major threat facing the U.S. as communism. They cast fascism as a defeated foreign evil, while elevating “reds” as the existential threat. Collectively, Americans preferred a simpler national tale: Fascism was “over there.” America was the bulwark of democracy “over here.” This is one way forgetting works.

Communities will remember what they have forgotten or minimized when history is taught, markers are erected, archives are preserved and commemorations are staged. The U.S. has done that for the Holocaust and for the Civil Rights Movement. But when it comes to the history of homegrown fascism, and local resistance to it, few communities have made efforts to preserve this history.

Remembering difficult pasts

At least one community has tried. In Southbury, Connecticut, community members erected a small plaque in 2022 to honor townspeople who in 1937 organized to keep the Bund from building a training camp there. The inscription is simple: “Southbury Stops Nazi Training Camp.”

The story it tells provides more than an example of local pride – it’s a template for how communities can commemorate the moments when ordinary citizens said “no.”

When Americans insist that “it can’t happen here,” they exempt themselves from vigilance. When they ignore or discount extremism, seeing it as “weird” or “foreign,” they miss how effectively such movements borrowed American idioms, such as patriotism, Christianity and law and order, to further hatred, violence and exclusion.

Research shows that some Americans have been drawn to movements that promise purity, unity and order at the expense of their neighbors’ rights. The point of remembering such histories is not to wallow in shame, nor to collapse every political dispute into “fascism.” It is to offer an accurate account of America’s democratic vulnerabilities.

Arlene Stein 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. America faced domestic fascists before and buried that history – https://theconversation.com/america-faced-domestic-fascists-before-and-buried-that-history-268978

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Barbara Kates-Garnick, Professor of Practice in Energy Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Everyone – politicians and the public – is talking about energy costs. In particular, they’re talking about data centers that drive artificial intelligence systems and their increasing energy demand, electricity costs and strain on the nation’s already overloaded energy grid.

As a former state energy official and utility executive, I know that many of the underlying questions involving energy affordability are very complex and have been festering for decades, in part because of how many groups are involved. Energy projects are expensive and take a long time to build. Where to build them is often also a difficult, even controversial, question. Consumers, regulators, utilities and developers all value energy reliability but have different interests, cost sensitivities and time frames in mind.

The problem of high energy prices is not new, but it is urgent. And it comes at a time when the U.S. is deeply divided on its approaches to energy policy and the politics of solving collective problems.

Rising costs

From September 2024 to September 2025, average U.S. residential electricity prices have risen 7.4%, from 16.8 to 18 cents per kilowatt-hour. Government analysts expect prices will continue to rise and outpace inflation in 2026.

With household earnings basically flat when adjusted for inflation, these increases hit consumers hard. They take up higher percentages of household expenses – especially for lower-income households. Electricity prices have effects throughout the economy, both directly on consumers’ budgets and indirectly by raising operating costs for business and industry, which pass them along to customers by raising prices for goods and services.

The problem

By 2030, energy analysts expect U.S. electricity demand to rise about 25%, and McKinsey estimates that data centers’ energy use could nearly triple from current levels by that year, using as much as 11.7% of all electricity in the U.S. – more than double their current share.

The nation’s current electricity grid is not ready to supply all that energy. And even if the electricity could be generated, transmission lines are aging and not up to carrying all that power. Their capacity would need to be expanded by about 60% by 2050.

Orders of key generating equipment often face multiyear delays. And construction of new and expanded transmission lines has been very slow.

A Brattle Group analysis estimates all that new and upgraded equipment could cost between US$760 billion and $1.4 trillion in the next 25 years.

The reasons

The enormous scale of the work needed is a result of a lack of investment over time and delays in the investments that have been made.

For instance, since at least 2011 there has been an effort to bring Canadian hydropower to the New England electricity grid. Political opposition to cutting a path for a transmission line through forestland meant the project was subjected to a statewide referendum in Maine – and then a court case that overturned the referendum results. During those delays, inflation raised the estimated price of the project by half, from $1 billion to $1.5 billion – an added cost that will be paid by Massachusetts electricity customers.

That multiyear effort is just one example of how the vast web of companies that generate power, transmit it from power plants to communities, and distribute it to homes and businesses complicates attempts to make changes to the power grid.

State and federal government agencies have roles in these processes. States’ public utilities commissions oversee the utility companies that distribute power to customers. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversees connections of power generators to the grid and the transmission lines that move electricity across state lines.

Often, those efforts aren’t aligned with each other, leading to delays over jurisdiction and decision-making.

For instance, as new generators prepare to operate, whether they are solar farms or gas-fired power plants, they need permission from FERC to connect to the transmission grid. The commission typically requests technical engineering studies to determine how the project would affect the existing system. Delays in this process increase the timeline and cost of development and postpone adding new capacity to the grid.

The costs

A key question for regulators and consumers alike is who should pay for adding more electricity to the grid and making the system more reliable.

Utilities traditionally charge customers for the costs of generating and delivering power. And it’s not clear how much power the data centers will ultimately require.

Some large data centers have taken to paying to build their own on-site power plants, though often they can supply energy to the grid as well.

In some states, efforts have begun to address public concern about electricity bills. In November 2025, two utility commissioners in Georgia, who had consistently approved electricity rate hikes over the previous two years, were voted out of office in a landslide.

New Jersey’s Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill has pledged to declare a utility-price emergency and freeze costs for a year.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul has paused implementation of state law, driven by environmental concerns, requiring that all new buildings over seven stories tall only use electricity and not natural gas or other energy sources. Hochul has said that requirement would increase electricity demand too much, raising prices and making the grid less stable.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey has filed legislation seeking to provide energy affordability, including eliminating some charges from utility bills, capping bill increases and barring utility companies from charging customers for advertisement costs.

The solutions

Clearly, there are no quick fixes or easy solutions to this complex situation.

However, innovation in regulation, combined with new technologies and even AI itself, may enable creative regulatory and technical solutions. For instance, devices that can be programmed to use energy efficiently, time-sensitive pricing and demand monitoring to smooth out peaks and valleys in electricity use can potentially ease both grid load and customers’ bills. But those solutions will work only if all the players are willing to cooperate.

There are a lot of ideas about how to lower the public’s burden of paying for data centers’ power. New ideas like this need careful scrutiny and possible revisions to ensure they are effective at lowering costs and increasing reliability.

As the country grapples with the effort to upgrade the grid, perform long-deferred maintenance and build new power plants, consumers’ costs are likely to continue to rise, further increasing pressure on Americans. Existing regulations and government oversight may no longer lower electricity costs immediately or help people plan for the rising costs over the long term.

Barbara Kates-Garnick receives funding from

I received funding from the Mass Clean Energy Center through Tufts University for a grant on Offshore wind..
I serve on the board of Resources for the Future

– ref. Rising electricity prices and an aging grid challenge the nation as data centers demand more power – https://theconversation.com/rising-electricity-prices-and-an-aging-grid-challenge-the-nation-as-data-centers-demand-more-power-271465

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Toni Lyn Morelli, Adjunct Full Professor of Environmental Conservation, UMass Amherst; U.S. Geological Survey

The idea began in California’s Sierra Nevada, a towering spine of rock and ice where rising temperatures and the decline of snowpack are transforming ecosystems, sometimes with catastrophic consequences for wildlife.

The prairie-doglike Belding’s ground squirrel (Urocitellus beldingi) had been struggling there as the mountain meadows it relies on dry out in years with less snowmelt and more unpredictable weather. At lower elevations, the foothill yellow-legged frog (Rana boylii) was also being hit hard by rising temperatures, because it needs cool, shaded streams to breed and survive.

As we studied these and other species in the Sierra Nevada, we discovered a ray of hope: The effects of warming weren’t uniform.

We were able to locate meadows that are less vulnerable to climate change, where the squirrels would have a better chance of thriving. We also identified streams that would stay cool for the frogs even as the climate heats up. Some are shaded by tree canopy. Others are in valleys with cool air or near deep lakes or springs.

These special areas are what we call climate change refugia.

Identifying these pockets of resilient habitat – a field of research that was inspired by our work with natural resource managers in the Sierra Nevada – is now helping national parks and other public and private land managers to take action to protect these refugia from other threats, including fighting invasive species and pollution and connecting landscapes, giving threatened species their best chance for survival in a changing climate.

Across the world, from the increasingly fire-prone landscapes of Australia to the glacial ecosystems at the southern tip of Chile, researchers, managers and local communities are working together to find and protect similar climate change refugia that can provide pockets of stability for local species as the planet warms.

A new collection of scientific papers examines some of the most promising examples of climate change refugia conservation. In that collection, over 100 scientists from four continents explain how frogs, trees, ducks and lions stand to benefit when refugia in their habitats are identified and safeguarded.

Saving songbirds in New England

The study of climate change refugia – places that are buffered from the worst effects of global warming – has grown rapidly in recent years.

In New England, managers at national parks and other protected areas were worried about how species are being affected by changes in climate and habitat. For example, the grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum), a little grassland songbird that nests in the open fields in the eastern U.S. and southern Canada, appears to be in trouble.

We studied its habitats and projected that less than 6% of its summer northeastern U.S. range will have the right temperature and precipitation conditions by 2080.

The loss of songbirds is not only a loss of beauty and music. These birds eat insects and are important to the balance of the ecosystem.

The sand plain grasslands that the grasshopper sparrow relies on in the northeastern U.S. are under threat not only from changes in climate but also changes in how people use the land. Public land managers in Montague, Massachusetts, have used burning and mowing to maintain habitat for nesting grasshopper sparrows. That effort also brought back the rare frosted elfin butterfly for the first time in decades.

Protecting Canada’s vast forest ecosystems

In Canada, the climate is warming at about twice the global average, posing a threat to its vast forested landscapes, which face intensifying drought, insect outbreaks and destructive wildfires.

We have been actively mapping refugia in British Columbia, looking for shadier, wetter or more sheltered places that naturally resist the worst effects of climate change.

The mapping project will help to identify important habitat for wildlife such as moose and caribou. Knowing where these climate change refugia are allows land-use planners and Indigenous communities to protect the most promising habitats from development, resource extraction and other stressors.

British Columbia is undertaking major changes to forest landscape planning in partnership with First Nations and communities.

Lions, giraffes and elephants (oh, my!)

On the sweeping vistas of East Africa, dozens of species interact in hot spots of global biodiversity. Unfortunately, rising temperatures, prolonged drought and shifting seasons are threatening their very existence.

In Tanzania, working with government agencies and conservation groups through past USAID funding, we mapped potential refugia for iconic savanna species including lions, giraffes and elephants. These areas include places that will hold water in drought and remain cooler during heat waves. The iconic Serengeti National Park, home to some of the world’s most famous wildlife, emerged as a key location for climate change refugia.

Combining local knowledge with spatial analysis is helping prioritize areas where big cats, antelope, elephants and the other great beasts of the Serengeti ecosystem can continue to thrive – provided other, nonclimate threats such as habitat loss and overharvesting are kept at bay.

The Tanzanian government has already been working with U.S.-funded partners to identify corridors that can help connect biodiversity hot spots.

Hope for the future

By identifying and protecting the places where species can survive the longest, we can buy crucial decades for ecosystems while conservation efforts are underway and the world takes steps to slow climate change.

Across continents and climates, the message is the same: Amid our rapidly warming world, pockets of resilience remain for now. With careful science and strong partnerships, we can find climate change refugia, protect them and help the wild things continue to thrive.

Toni Lyn Morelli receives funding from U.S. Geological Survey.

Diana Stralberg receives funding from Natural Resources Canada, the Governments of the Northwest Territories and British Columbia, Canada, and the Wilburforce Foundation.

– ref. Where the wild things thrive: Finding and protecting nature’s climate change safe havens – https://theconversation.com/where-the-wild-things-thrive-finding-and-protecting-natures-climate-change-safe-havens-270350

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Bedassa Tadesse, Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth

As Americans gather for holiday celebrations, many will quietly thank the health care workers who keep their families and friends well: the ICU nurse who stabilized a grandparent, the doctor who adjusted a tricky prescription, the home health aide who ensures an aging relative can bathe and eat safely.

Far fewer may notice how many of these professionals are foreign-born, and how immigration policies shaped in Washington today could determine whether those same families can get care when they need it in the future.

As an economist who studies how immigration influences economies, including health care systems, I see a consistent picture: Immigrants are a vital part of the health care workforce, especially in roles facing staffing shortages.

Yet current immigration policies, such as increased visa fees, stricter eligibility requirements and enforcement actions that affect legally present workers living with undocumented family members, risk eroding this critical workforce, threatening timely care for millions of Americans. The timing couldn’t be worse.

A perfect storm: Rising demand, looming shortages

America’s health care system is entering an unprecedented period of strain. An aging population, coupled with rising rates of chronic conditions, is driving demand for care to new heights.

The workforce isn’t growing fast enough to meet those needs. The U.S. faces a projected shortfall of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Hospitals, clinics and elder-care services are expected to add about 2.1 million jobs between 2022 and 2032. Many of those will be front-line caregiving roles: home health, personal care and nursing assistants.

For decades, immigrant health care workers have filled gaps where U.S.-born workers are limited. They serve as doctors in rural clinics, nurses in understaffed hospitals and aides in nursing homes and home care settings.

Nationally, immigrants make up about 18% of the health care workforce, and they’re even more concentrated in critical roles. Roughly 1 in 4 physicians, 1 in 5 registered nurses and 1 in 3 home health aides are foreign-born.

State-level data reveals just how deeply immigrants are embedded in the health care system. Consider California, where immigrants account for 1 in 3 physicians, 36% of registered nurses and 42% of health aides. On the other side of the country, immigrants make up 35% of hospital staff in New York state. In New York City, they are the majority of health care workers, representing 57% of the health care workforce.

Even in states with smaller immigrant populations, their impact is outsized.

In Minnesota, immigrants are nearly 1 in 3 nursing assistants in nursing homes and home care agencies, despite being just 12% of the overall workforce. Iowa, where immigrants are just 6.3% of the population, relies on them for a disproportionate share of rural physicians.

These patterns transcend geography and partisan divides. From urban hospitals to rural clinics, immigrants keep facilities operational. Policies that reduce their numbers – through higher visa fees, stricter eligibility requirements or increased deportations – have ripple effects, closed hospital beds.

While health care demand soars, the pipeline for new health care workers could struggle to keep pace under current rules. Medical schools and nursing programs face capacity limits, and the time required to train new professionals – often a decade for doctors – means that there aren’t any quick fixes.

Immigrants have long bridged this gap – not just in clinical roles but in research and innovation. International students, who often pursue STEM and health-related fields at U.S. universities, are a key part of this pipeline. Yet recent surveys from the Council of Graduate Schools show a sharp decline in new international student enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year, driven partly by visa uncertainties and global talent competition.

If this trend holds, the smaller cohorts arriving today will mean fewer physicians, nurses, biostatisticians and medical researchers in the coming decade – precisely when demand peaks. Although no major research organization has yet modeled the full impact that stricter immigration policies could have on the health care workforce, experts warn that tighter visa rules, higher application fees and stepped-up enforcement are likely to intensify shortages, not ease them.

These policies make it harder to hire foreign-born workers and create uncertainty for those already here. In turn, that complicates efforts to staff hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities at a moment when the system can least afford additional strain.

The hidden toll: Delayed care, rising risks

Patients don’t feel staffing gaps as statistics – they feel them physically.

A specialist appointment delayed by months can mean worsening pain. Older adults without home care aides face higher risks of falls, malnutrition and medication errors. An understaffed nursing home turning away patients leaves families scrambling. These aren’t hypotheticals – they’re already happening in pockets of the country where shortages are acute.

The costs of restrictive immigration policies won’t appear in federal budgets but in human tolls: months spent with untreated depression, discomfort awaiting procedures, or preventable hospitalizations. Rural communities, often served by immigrant physicians, and urban nursing homes, reliant on immigrant aides, will feel this most acutely.

Most Americans won’t read a visa bulletin or a labor market forecast over holiday dinners. But they will notice when it becomes harder to get care for a child, a partner or an aging parent.

Aligning immigration policy with the realities of the health care system will not, by itself, fix every problem in U.S. health care. But tightening the rules in the face of rising demand and known shortages almost guarantees more disruption. If policymakers connect immigration policy to workforce realities, and adjust it accordingly, they can help ensure that when Americans reach out for care, someone is there to answer.

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

– ref. The US already faces a health care workforce shortage – immigration policy could make it worse – https://theconversation.com/the-us-already-faces-a-health-care-workforce-shortage-immigration-policy-could-make-it-worse-271586