Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Skip York, Nonresident Fellow in Energy and Global Oil, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

As the Trump administration makes announcement after announcement about its efforts to promote the U.S. fossil fuel industry, the industry isn’t exactly jumping at new opportunities.

Some high-profile oil and gas industry leaders and organizations have objected to changes to long-standing government policy positions that give companies firm ground on which to make their plans.

And the financial picture around oil and gas drilling is moving against the Trump administration’s hopes. Though politicians may tout new opportunities to drill offshore or in Arctic Alaska, the commercial payoff is not clear and even unlikely.

Having worked in and studied the energy industry for decades, I’ve seen a number of discoveries that companies struggled to moved forward with because either the discovery was not large enough to be commercially profitable or the geology was too difficult to make development plausible. Market conditions are the prime drivers of U.S. energy investment – not moves by politicians seeking to seem supportive of the industry.

Market fundamentals trump policy announcements

The general decline in oil prices from 2022 through late 2025 has reduced the attractiveness of many drilling investments.

And opening the East and West coasts to drilling may sound significant, but these regions have unconfirmed reserves. That means a lot of subsurface work, such as seismic surveys, stratigraphic mapping and reservoir characterization – potentially taking years – would need to be done before any drilling would begin.

Offshore drilling also faces enormous opposition.

On the West Coast, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have made forceful statements against any new California offshore oil drilling. They have said any effort is economically unnecessary, environmentally reckless and “dead on arrival” politically in the state.

California local governments, environmental groups, business alliances and coastal communities also oppose drilling and have vowed to use legal and political tools to block them.

There is opposition on the East Coast, too. More than 250 East Coast local governments have passed resolutions against drilling.

Governors on both sides of the aisle, including Democrat Josh Stein of North Carolina and Republicans Brian Kemp of Georgia and Henry McMaster of South Carolina, have spoken out against drilling off their coasts.

Arctic drilling is even harder

Drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Beaufort Sea off Prudhoe Bay in Alaska would be a massive undertaking. These projects require years of development and are subject to future reversals in federal policy – just as Trump has lifted long-standing drilling bans in those areas, at least for now.

In addition, Alaska is one of the most expensive and technically challenging places to drill. Specialized equipment, infrastructure for frozen landscapes, and risk mitigation for extreme weather drive costs far above other regions. These projects also face logistical challenges, such as pipelines running hundreds of miles through remote, icy terrain.

Natural gas from Alaska would likely be sold to Asian buyers, who increasingly have alternative sources of supply from Australia, Canada, Qatar and even the U.S. Gulf Coast. As production rises in those places, the entrance of Alaskan natural gas into the market raises the risk for global oversupply, which could depress prices and reduce profitability.

Despite political support from the Trump administration, the oil and gas companies would need financing to pay for the drilling. And those loans won’t come if the oil companies don’t have agreements with buyers for the petroleum products that are produced. Major oil companies have withdrawn from Alaska and signaled skepticism about attractive long-term returns.

Trump has helped some

In the first 10 months of the second Trump administration, the president has signed at least 13 executive orders pertaining to the energy industry. Most of them focus on streamlining U.S. energy regulation and removing barriers to the development and procurement of domestic energy resources. However, the broad nature of some of these orders may fall short of establishing the stable regulatory environment necessary for the development of capital-intensive energy projects with long time horizons.

Those efforts have reversed the Biden administration’s go-slow approach to oil drilling, reducing – though not completely eliminating – the backlog of requests for onshore and offshore drilling permits that accumulated during Biden’s presidency.

Delays in permit approvals increase project costs, risk and uncertainty. Delays can increase the chances that a project ultimately is downsized – as happened with ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in Alaska – or canceled altogether. Longer timelines increase financing and carrying costs, because capital is tied up without generating revenue and developers must pay interest on the debt while waiting for approvals. Delays also lead to higher project costs, eroding project economics and sometimes preventing the project from turning a profit.

Investment follows economics, not politics

Unlike in some countries, such as with Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, Norway’s Equinor or China’s CHN Energy, the U.S. does not have a national oil or gas company. All of the major energy producers in the U.S. are privately owned and answer to shareholders, not the government.

Executive orders or political slogans may set a tone or direction, but they cannot override the fundamental requirement for profitability. Investments can’t be mandated by presidential decree: Projects must make economic sense. Without that, whether due to low prices, high costs, uncertain demand or changing regulations, companies will not proceed.

Even if federal policies open new areas for drilling or relieve some regulatory restrictions, companies will invest only if they see a clear path to profit over the long term.

With most energy investments costing large amounts of money over many years, the industry likely wants a sense of policy stability from the Trump administration. That could include lowering barriers to profitable investments by accelerating the approval process for supporting infrastructure, such as transmission power lines, pipelines, storage capacity and other logistics, rather than relying on sweeping announcements that lack market traction.

Skip York 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. US oil industry doesn’t see profit in Trump’s ‘pro-petroleum’ moves – https://theconversation.com/us-oil-industry-doesnt-see-profit-in-trumps-pro-petroleum-moves-270518

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Meg Warren, Associate Professor of Management, Western Washington University

Most people care about fairness at work and want to support colleagues who face marginalization – for example, people of color, women and people with disabilities. Our research has found that 76% of employees want to be allies to co-workers who face additional challenges, and 84% value equity. That’s in line with a 2025 national survey that found 88% of employees supported employers offering training on how to be more inclusive.

So why doesn’t that support always turn into action?

Our new study in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health points to one reason: Some people may freeze with worry because they feel like a fake. Specifically, they feel like they don’t have the skills to effectively support their marginalized co-workers, even though they want to. Those feelings may block action, which makes people feel even more fraudulent – creating a loop that’s hard to break.

Together, we – Meg Warren, Michael T. Warren and John LaVelle – found that 1 in 5 people who want to support marginalized groups experience the impostor phenomenon even when they have the skills to be effective allies.

The impostor phenomenon, formerly called the “impostor syndrome,” is the feeling that you’re not good enough – even when there’s objective evidence that you are. Researchers have documented it across many workplace and professional settings, including in health care, technology, entrepreneurship, the C-suite and academia.

Importantly, these feelings are linked to significantly higher anxiety and feelings of depression among people who want to be allies. We found that men, leaders, younger employees and people of color were more likely to experience the impostor phenomenon in the context of allyship.

What the impostor phenomenon looks like for allies

Consider “James,” a senior project manager. For the past few years, his company has expected all managers to undergo diversity, equity and inclusion training and to support the company’s Black Employee Network. Earlier this year, however, the company publicly withdrew its commitment to DEI and removed all mentions of it from its website.

When his team asked for his thoughts, James felt lost. The facts he learned during the Black Employee Network meetings were unsettling and undeniable. Before, he regularly cited these during various meetings with his colleagues and senior leaders. Now, he felt pressured to act as if none of this mattered. He felt frustrated, at a loss for words and a complete fake – like he didn’t know how to support his colleagues anymore.

While “James” is a composite character drawn from many stories we’ve heard over the course of our research, his experience captures the bind that many would-be allies face.

When allies feel this way, they often compare themselves to an imagined “perfect ally,” thinking that if they can’t be outrageously heroic, they must be failures. They then deal with feelings of inadequacy by procrastinating or overpreparing before stepping up for others – to the point where they miss crucial opportunities where they could have made a difference.

People tend to feel like an impostor when they encounter a challenge that seems bigger than their ability to cope with it. So it’s not surprising that a lot of people feel this way about workplace equity. Inequity and bias play out in complex ways in organizations: The rules change rapidly, and people can receive mixed messages about what behaviors are appropriate, valued and rewarded. This can make allyship feel overwhelmingly challenging, even for those who are otherwise skilled.

Work culture also matters. In toxic organizational cultures or hypercompetitive environments, people feel pressure to hide their mistakes, they worry about colleagues sabotaging their efforts, and they see humility as a weakness. In such places – and especially when the would-be ally’s role is highly visible and entails heavy responsibility – people are vulnerable to impostor feelings.

Past criticism can add fuel, too. If you’ve been admonished for standing up for a colleague or have seen others be attacked – including by those who wish to maintain an unjust status quo – you might further feel pressure to only act in ways that are immune to criticism. That’s an impossible standard.

Consequences of feeling like an impostor: Feeling worse, doing worse

Leaders in particular are vulnerable to feeling like impostors on allyship. Many haven’t been properly trained on how to listen to and support co-workers who might be facing discrimination and are quietly suffering, yet are held responsible for solving complex issues around fairness that long predated them.

And when stuck in this uncomfortable space, people who feel like impostors are likely to become defensive and feel pressured to be a hero. To prove themselves, they may overcompensate in ways that backfire – for example, by loudly claiming support for disadvantaged workers without following up with useful action, or by swooping in to fix issues without respecting the preferences of the people involved.

Unfortunately, this not only affects their ability to be a supportive colleague, but it also likely harms their mental health. Indeed, the impostor phenomenon has been found to be linked to heightened anxiety and feelings of depression, both in our study and beyond.

So you might wonder: What if I opt out of all of this by not thinking about inequity at all? Our research suggests that this is a bad idea. People who are disengaged from issues of inequity, and who don’t invest in learning and growing as allies, experience lower self-confidence at work and have lower job satisfaction. Checking out of allyship could be bad for your professional well-being.

The good news is you don’t have to be stuck feeling this way. You can take low-risk, bite-sized actions that can pull you out of feeling fake and boost your confidence, all while improving your own professional success and mental health.

Research points to three simple ways forward. First, recognize and loudly celebrate the strengths of marginalized colleagues, which creates an uplifting work culture. Second, take concrete steps to build trust – for example, by giving proper credit to a disadvantaged colleague if their merit is wrongfully questioned. And finally, overcome your cynicism – which research shows invariably suppresses constructive action – and instead adamantly choose hope, even when it’s hard.

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. You care about fairness at work – so why do you feel like a fake? – https://theconversation.com/you-care-about-fairness-at-work-so-why-do-you-feel-like-a-fake-271081

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

When Sabrina Carpenter’s provocative 2024 pop single “Bed Chem” plays on the radio, and I hear the lyrics

“But I bet we’d have really good bed chem / How you pick me up, pull ‘em down, turn me ’round / Oh, it just makes sense / How you talk so sweet when you’re doing bad things”

it reminds me of a song released 45 years earlier:

“Let’s take a shower, said a shower together, yes / I’ll wash your body and you’ll wash mine, yeah / Rub me down in some, some hot oils, baby / And I’ll do the same thing to you”
—“Turn Off the Lights” by Teddy Pendergrass

Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1990s, I listened to soul singer-turned-R&B sex symbol Teddy Pendergrass and other artists who defined the Sound of Philadelphia. Now, as a professor of ethnic studies, I teach students about the influence of Black artists on modern pop culture.

Pendergrass would have turned 75 this year. Although he died in 2010, he helped usher in an era of music that brought both disco and more mature, sensual music to the mainstream – and I see his influence in a number of pop and R&B hits today.

The Philadelphia sound

Theodore DeReese Pendergrass was born in South Carolina in 1950, but he grew up in North Philadelphia, where he sang and played drums in church and became an ordained minister at age 10.

He dropped out of Thomas Edison High School in the 11th grade to pursue a music career, and he recorded “Angel With Muddy Feet” in 1967. The song was not a commercial success, so he focused on playing drums for a number of local bands.

In 1970, Pendergrass was invited by Philly soul and R&B singer Harold Melvin to play drums with his group, the Blue Notes. During a performance, Pendergrass sang along, leading Melvin to invite him to take over as lead vocalist after John Atkins left the group. The following year, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes signed a record deal with the newly created Philadelphia International Records, forging a partnership between Pendergrass and label founders and legendary producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff that would last over a decade.

Philadelphia International’s influence was felt throughout the music industry, with Gamble and Huff producing many of the hits performed by the label’s artists. Gamble and Huff blended soul and funk with complex horn and string arrangements to create the Philly soul sound.

This sound became key in the development of disco, smooth jazz and neo-soul. Slower, more intimate R&B and smooth jazz also formed the foundation for the “quiet storm” radio format that Pendergrass helped foster as a solo artist on stations like WDAS in Philadelphia.

Marvin Gaye’s 1973 album “Let’s Get It On” was Motown’s response to the emergence of Philly Soul, and helped popularize more explicitly sensual R&B and soul.

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes had their first No. 1 hit with 1972’s “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.” While on the Philadelphia International label, the group recorded four gold records between 1972 and 1976. One of their biggest hits, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in 1975, was not released until November 1976. It charted after R&B and disco singer Thelma Houston’s cover of the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977.

Going solo

Pendergrass left the Blue Notes in 1976 after disputes with Melvin over money, but he stayed on with Philadelphia International and began a solo career. His self-titled album was released in 1977, and the first single, “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” reached No. 5 on the R&B charts, helping to push the album into the top 20.

The following year, his “Life Is a Song Worth Singing” hit No. 1 on the Soul LP chart behind the sensual single “Close the Door.”

Pendergrass, with his stylish good looks, quickly became not just a heartthrob, but a top R&B artist with five consecutive platinum albums between 1977 and 1981. He was selling out concerts, and legendary producer Shep Gordon recognized that the vast majority of the attendees were women. This led to Pendergrass’ “Ladies Only” tour in 1978, which became a template for future soul and R&B tours by contemporaries like Luther Vandross and later artists like Ginuwine, whose tours were also marketed specifically to women.

The 1979 erotic hit “Turn Off the Lights” strengthened Pendergrass’ reputation as a sex symbol. While Marvin Gaye was dealing with both financial and personal issues, Pendergrass became the top performer of soul “bedroom ballads.”

Pendergrass and Gaye, along with other contemporaries like Barry White, Minnie Riperton and Donna Summer, included more explicitly erotic themes and lyrics than earlier artists.

For example, in Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On,” he implores to his lover:

“There’s nothin’ wrong with me / Lovin’ you, baby love, love / And givin’ yourself to me can never be wrong / If the love is true, oh baby.”

In “Close the Door,” Pendergrass similarly tells his lover:

“Close the door / Let me give you what you’ve been waiting for / Baby I got so much love to give / And I wanna give it all … to you …”

One challenge for the songwriters like Gamble and Huff was to balance the sensuality that fans loved with Federal Communication Commission rules regarding profane language. Songs like “Turn Down the Lights,” written by Gamble and Huff for Pendergrass, describe a detailed night of romance without language that would be considered obscene by the FCC.

Slow jams and sex positivity

R&B and soul slow jams by artists like Freddie Jackson and Vandross dominated bedroom music through the 1980s, although derivative genres like neo-soul and quiet storm continued to produce bedroom ballads like Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” in 1982.

Madonna and Cyndi Lauper helped bring a female perspective to more sex-positive pop music with songs including “Like a Virgin” and “She Bop.” Janet Jackson and Salt-N-Pepa did the same in R&B and hip-hop. Other groups embraced their sex symbol status through the 1990s, exemplified by TLC’s “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” and “Creep,” and Next’s “Too Close.” The artists of the 1980s and 1990s were also boosted by MTV, bringing a visual element to their sensual lyrics.

The emergence of new jack swing, a term coined in 1987 to define a new style that combined dance, hip-hop and R&B, ushered in higher-tempo erotic songs like “Do Me!” by Bel Biv Devoe along with slower bedroom ballads like “I’ll Make Love to You” by Philadelphia’s Boyz II Men.

Bedroom ballads with disco-synth makeover

Philadelphia International’s sound and sensual lyrics have reemerged in recent years through artists Sabrina Carpenter and Chapelle Roan, whose synth-pop and disco sound can be traced back to Gamble and Huff, and the label’s stable of artists.

Proto-disco songs like “The Love I Lost” and “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and Pendergrass’ disco hit “Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose” – or his later synthesizer-heavy album “Joy” – would influence current synth-pop hits like Roan’s disco-influenced “Pink Pony Club” and Carpenter’s synth-pop “Manchild.”

Carpenter in particular has seemingly struck that balance between mainstream success and sensual lyrics. Her past three albums have been certified platinum and embrace increasingly mature themes such as female arousal.

“Man’s Best Friend,” released in August 2025, sparked controversy with a sexually suggestive album cover that further cemented her Carpenter’s symbol image. This image is reinforced by her stage presence, like dancing in her underwear on “Saturday Night Live” and mature songs like “Tears,”

Pendergrass’ career was derailed when he lost control of his car on Lincoln Drive in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia in 1982. The accident left him a tetraplegic. He later continued his music career, but the “Black Elvis” moved away from bedroom ballads.

Although Pendergrass’ meteoric rise was cut short, his influence is still seen and heard across music genres today, especially as empowered female artists utilize disco and synth-pop sounds while embracing their sexuality through their songs and performances.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Jared Bahir Browsh 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. Sabrina Carpenter’s and Chapelle Roan’s sexy pop hits have roots in the bedroom ballads of Teddy Pendergrass and Philly soul – https://theconversation.com/sabrina-carpenters-and-chapelle-roans-sexy-pop-hits-have-roots-in-the-bedroom-ballads-of-teddy-pendergrass-and-philly-soul-270035

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anya Foxen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, California Polytechnic State University

The notion of the divine feminine is a recurring motif in American pop culture, playing with the assumptions people make when referring to God – often the deity described in the Bible – as “He.”

Whether it’s Alanis Morissette’s iconic portrayal of God in the 1999 comedy “Dogma” or Ariana Grande’s titular declaration in her 2018 track “God is a Woman,” the effect is the same: a mixture of irreverence and empowerment. It dovetails, moreover, with a ubiquitous political slogan: “The future is female.”

But in a historical moment when society is bitterly contesting ideas about gender, we’d note that these notions still rely on a simplistic binary.

As two scholars who study the entangled history of spirituality and gender, we often observe an especially fraught version of this dynamic playing out among “spiritual but not religious” practitioners, often called spiritual seekers. To many such people, the divine feminine represents an escape from oppressive gender norms, and yet many stumble in trying to reconcile the idea with the embodied realities of biological sex.

An approach that escapes this dilemma is the centuries-old Kundalini tradition, which paints a model of the divine feminine beyond gender altogether.

The feminine Shakti

There are certainly examples of the feminine divine to be drawn from Christian and other Abrahamic religious traditions. Yet many seekers quickly find themselves reaching beyond these borders.

When they do, one of the first concepts they come across is Shakti, a divine feminine energy that manifests in the human body as the electrifying force of Kundalini. Both terms originate in South Asian religions – especially Hinduism – that fall under the broad umbrella of tantra.

Tantric cultural and spiritual traditions, which began to emerge in the early centuries of the Common Era, take a positive perspective on the material world in general and the human body in particular, as opposed to traditions that regard both as inherently illusory or sinful. In tantra, the material world and physical body are suffused by divine energy. This energy is called Shakti, and it is feminine.

Another key idea common to tantric traditions is that the universe is composed of two fundamental principles – or rather that it has two poles: a dynamic energy, which is female, balanced by an unchanging consciousness, which is male. As the great Goddess, Shakti goes by many names, including Durga, Kali and myriad others. The masculine principle is usually called Shiva, though this can vary as well.

Divinity beyond binaries

Tantric traditions span over a millennium in time and a subcontinent in space, so it should come as no surprise that they are incredibly diverse. However, most practices that enjoy global popularity today, especially those centered on the divine feminine energy of Kundalini, can be traced to a specific tradition called Kaula Tantra, which developed in the northeast of modern-day India near Kashmir.

This tradition is distinctive by maintaining that while the cosmos is polar, it is also nondual, meaning that there is only one ultimate reality. So, the pairing of Shakti and Shiva, feminine and masculine, energy and consciousness, is best understood not as a binary but as the two sides of a Mobiüs strip, where one seamlessly flows into the other.

Take a strip of paper, twist it into a figure eight – also the symbol we use for infinity – and glue the back to the front. That’s the Kaula model of the universe.

In such a world, Shiva is Shakti. The masculine is the feminine. Both are divine, but even more than this, both are ultimate, because there is no difference between them. God is goddess, and both are nonbinary.

Awakening Kundalini

Kundalini yoga is a centuries-old practice quite different from the branded version popularized more recently by Yogi Bhajan. It involves using complex meditative and physical techniques to awaken and raise this energy from its usual resting place in the bottom of the torso.

In doing this, tradition says the practitioner experiences a radical transformation both of the body and of consciousness. Premodern texts describe Kundalini’s fiery energy burning through the tissues of the body, shooting up to the crown of the head, where the feminine Shakti unites with her masculine counterpart and all dissolves into oneness.

While some texts treat this ascent as equivalent to a sort of voluntary death, others describe how, once she has ascended, Kundalini returns to bathe the body in a cooling nectar of immortality, resulting in an embodied state of enlightenment and liberation.

According to this tradition, the body may appear the same but is now enlivened with a new consciousness that has transcended all dualities – including male and female.

Is the divine feminine female?

Human gender norms often prove difficult to shake, however. Though the energy of Kundalini is understood as feminine, Kundalini yoga in South Asia has been traditionally practiced by men. The reasons for this are perhaps almost entirely social, and yet they remain a powerful force.

Ironically, the very fact that Kundalini is often believed to be associated with womanhood has resulted in women being excluded – or at least deprioritized – from cultivating their own practice. Instead, they have historically become assistants or accessories to the enlightenment of men.

The fieldwork we present in our recent book on the topic bears this out. Among South Asian practitioners, the common attitude is that women embody the maternal principle, and this makes them extremely powerful. In them, the energy of Kundalini operates naturally. Men, on the other hand, need to be purified by a woman through ritual in order to effectively engage in Kundalini practice.

Such ideas are also common among Western practitioners, who tend to believe women have a more natural aptitude for Kundalini awakening. One of our subjects said this is because women have less ego. Another attributed it to female sexual fluids.

However, cultural difference plays a role, too. Western notions of the divine feminine are much more inclined to cling to the binary, resisting the idea that male and female bodies alike are ultimately woven from the same nondual reality.

Most striking, perhaps, one man who had spent a lifetime among seekers at spiritual retreats in the U.S. and South America told us of a long-held and common belief that only women were capable of Kundalini experience. It was, to him, an energy exclusive to the female body. He recounted having been shocked, only months prior, at encountering a copy of the 1967 classic “Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man,” authored by the decidedly male Gopi Krishna.

The broader point, however, is that the historical core of Kundalini practice has always been about transcending all dualities.

Thus, even as a goddess representing the ultimate “She,” Kundalini is best understood as nonbinary. Perhaps if we can wrap our heads around this idea, we can cultivate a more inclusive empowerment.

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. Outside the West, the Kundalini tradition presents a model of the ‘divine feminine’ beyond binary gender – https://theconversation.com/outside-the-west-the-kundalini-tradition-presents-a-model-of-the-divine-feminine-beyond-binary-gender-263402

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Ramazan Kılınç, Professor of Political Science, Kennesaw State University

On his visit to Turkey and Lebanon between Nov. 27 and Dec. 2, 2025, Pope Leo XIV met with political and religious leaders, celebrated Mass and visited historical sites.

The trip marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which resolved core doctrinal differences, with the aim of advancing Christian unity at the time.

The Vatican framed the visit to the two Muslim-majority countries as a gesture of interreligious dialogue, as well as support for local minority Christian communities.

Through interfaith dialogue and symbolic acts, religious leaders often act as diplomats to strengthen relationships with other faith groups as part of religious diplomacy.

Traditional diplomacy often prioritizes political and economic interests, whereas religious diplomacy builds on identities and values. But as a scholar of religion and politics, I have often seen how religious diplomacy complements conventional diplomatic tools – the pope’s visit being the most recent example.

Turkey and religious freedom

Lebanon and Turkey have a long history of Christianity, dating back to the early centuries of the religion. The Bible mentions Jesus visiting Tyre and Sidon, coastal cities in Lebanon. Many early Christian communities thrived in lands of modern-day Turkey, such as Ephesus, Antioch and Cappadocia.

Despite Turkey’s significance in the history of Christianity, today Christians constitute less than 0.5% of its population. These include diverse Christian communities, from Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox to Roman Catholic and Protestant.

Turkey’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but Christians face legal and administrative hurdles in matters such as building places of worship.

The pope’s visit did not directly confront these structural issues, but the trip itself drew international attention to the plight of Christians.

The pope met with Muslim leaders to foster dialogue. He visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, an architectural icon for Turkish Muslims. In a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the pope emphasized Turkey’s role as “a bridge between East and West, Asia and Europe.”

Even the pro-government media, which does not usually support rights for religious minorities, highlighted Turkey’s responsibility to provide religious freedoms for its Christian minorities in its coverage of the trip.

Challenges of Lebanese Christians

Christians make up about a third of the Lebanese population – the largest proportion of any country in the Middle East.

Maronite Catholics, an Eastern Catholic community that traces its roots to the fourth century, constitute the largest group among Lebanese Christians. They are followed by Greek Orthodox communities, concentrated in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Other groups include Melkite Greek Catholics, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics, Copts and various Protestant communities.

Christians in Lebanon enjoy constitutional protections and better political representation than Christians in other Middle Eastern countries. Lebanon’s confessional system allocates power among religious communities. The president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of the parliament must be a Shia Muslim; parliament and cabinet seats are split equally between Christians and Muslims.

However, Christians are concerned with their decreasing population in Lebanon. They constituted over 50% of the population when Lebanon gained its independence from France in 1943. Over the years, many Christians left Lebanon because of economic pressures, the dominance of the Shia group Hezbollah and insecurity stemming from Israeli strikes.

The pope advised political leaders to prioritize cooperation over sectarian interests within its confessional political system. As a gesture, he joined Muslim leaders in Martyrs’ Square in Beirut and shared readings from both the Gospels and the Quran.

Moral boost

The pope’s visit provided a morale boost for Lebanese Christians. Many saw the pope’s presence as encouragement to stay in Lebanon despite all the concerns.

Yet, some expressed disappointment that the pope did not travel to southern Lebanon, where Christian villages have suffered from Israeli strikes.

However, the pope reiterated the Vatican’s support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the only way to resolve “the conflict they continually live.”

Religious diplomacy

Through his visits to Turkey and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV intertwined religious teachings with cultural gestures to promote a message of peaceful coexistence.

By meeting Christian groups in Turkey and Lebanon, he offered moral support and visibility to minorities facing insecurity and emigration pressures. By meeting with Muslim leaders, he showcased the Vatican’s commitment to coexistence and dialogue with Islam.

It remains to be seen whether the pope’s religious diplomacy will lead to tangible policy outcomes. Yet, one thing is clear: Religious diplomacy serves as a valuable tool for encouraging dialogue and understanding as it did with the pope’s visit.

Ramazan Kılınç 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. Pope Leo XIV’s visits to Turkey and Lebanon were about religious diplomacy – https://theconversation.com/pope-leo-xivs-visits-to-turkey-and-lebanon-were-about-religious-diplomacy-271208

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By William McCorkle, Associate Professor of Education, College of Charleston

The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies have heightened stress among the country’s approximately 14 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

The sharp rise in dramatic arrests and deportations of immigrants over the past year has received widespread media attention.

A less publicized issue is that many young, undocumented immigrants are also finding it harder to apply to and stay in college.

As someone who researches teacher training and was a high school teacher in South Carolina, I have researched how restrictive education policies make it harder for immigrant students, particularly undocumented students, to receive a college degree.

Bumpy path to higher education for undocumented students

In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that students could not be discriminated against based on their immigration status.

This ruling ensured that immigrant students could not be denied entrance to public K-12 schools.

The caveat is that the ruling did not extend to higher education.

In 1996, Congress approved the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, which made it harder for undocumented immigrants who are deported to reenter the U.S., among other changes to increase border security.

This law also said that states could not provide in-state tuition to undocumented students at public universities, unless they gave the same benefits to out-of-state American citizens.

Then, in the early 2000s, a bipartisan group of Texas representatives helped pass a bill that opened up in-state tuition to undocumented students. The bill based tuition and scholarships on specific residency requirements, such as graduating from high school in the state, allowing the bill to circumvent the 1996 federal law.

Also in the early 2000s, California, Illinois, Washington and New York also passed similar legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition – and in some cases, state scholarships – at state universities.

Even some conservative states, such as Utah, Oklahoma and Kansas, passed such legislation during the early 2000s that let undocumented immigrants pay in-state tuition at public universities and colleges.

The tide turns

But just a few years later, things began to shift.

In 2008, South Carolina became the first state to ban undocumented students from studying at public colleges and universities altogether.

Georgia and Alabama quickly followed suit with similar bans.

In 2012, after Congress created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to allow immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to temporarily work, study and stay in the U.S., some schools in South Carolina briefly banned DACA students from attending public universities – despite the new federal law.

The schools reversed course the next year following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, but still required DACA students to pay out-of-state tuition.

Until 2015, South Carolina even denied in-state tuition for some American citizens with undocumented parents. The state reversed the policy following a lawsuit.

The trend toward more restrictive policies toward undocumented students has continued during the Trump administration.

In February 2025, Florida passed a law that revoked in-state tuition for undocumented students. Florida still allows undocumented immigrants to enroll at public colleges and universities, as long as they pay full tuition.

And over the summer, the Department of Justice challenged Oklahoma’s and Texas’ in-state tuition policies, which had allowed all undocumented students to pay in-state tuition.

Both states quickly ended their policies.

Texas and Oklahoma still allow DACA recipients to attend public universities and pay in-state tuition rates.

As of 2025, 22 states and Washington D.C. allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. The remaining states, meanwhile, either do not have a state policy, require undocumented immigrants to pay out-of-state tuition, or bar them entirely from attending public universities.

A challenging environment

Overall, these shifts make it harder for many undocumented students to go to and stay in college.

The price of in-state tuition at public universities varies, but it typically offers in-state residents a much lower tuition rate than students coming from out of state. While the average in-state tuition at public colleges costs about US$11,610 for the 2024-25 school year, out-of-state students paid $30,780, on average, during this same time frame.

Undocumented students do not qualify for federal financial aid, so paying out-of-state tuition at a public university usually prevents immigrants from pursuing a college degree.

Some research shows that in-state tuition policies help reduce undocumented college students’ dropout rates by about 8%.

In-state tuition policies also increase college enrollment of noncitizen Latino students by 54%.

A blockade for students

I began teaching social studies at a high school in South Carolina in 2012, soon after many of these restrictions on immigrant students were enacted. I found that many educators and students were not aware of these restrictions until students applied to colleges or sought state licenses.

My students included DACA recipients who completed a two-year program in areas like cosmetology, only then to be told they would not be allowed to practice in the state.

My later research focused on DACA students who aspired to become educators but had to either stop pursuing that goal or go out of state to teach. Other immigrant students I surveyed in my research said they lost motivation in the high school classroom due to the restrictions to pursue higher education.

Carryover effects

Policies that make it easier for undocumented immigrants to attend college don’t just affect individual students and their families – they also have a positive effect on local economies.

Research from 2025 shows that when undocumented students can pay in-state tuition, they become more likely to have a job after graduation.

Another study from Clemson University and the nonprofit group Hispanic Alliance found that South Carolina could be losing up to $68 million a year in revenue due to the license policy for DACA recipients.

I have known undocumented people who are aspiring doctors and teachers and moved to other states since they could not study or receive professional licenses in South Carolina.

Restrictive education policies could mean that some of the most talented immigrant students will leave their respective states. However, the average undocumented immigrant student will not usually pursue or delay higher education if the tuition is not affordable.

I believe these policies will ultimately mean a less educated and productive society.

William McCorkle 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. Young, undocumented immigrants are finding it increasingly hard to attend college as South Carolina and other states restrict in-state tuition or ban them altogether – https://theconversation.com/young-undocumented-immigrants-are-finding-it-increasingly-hard-to-attend-college-as-south-carolina-and-other-states-restrict-in-state-tuition-or-ban-them-altogether-267597

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Derek Lemoine, Professor of Economics, University of Arizona

When pregnant women drink water that comes from wells downstream of sites contaminated with PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” the risks to their babies’ health substantially increase, a new study found. These risks include the chance of low birth weight, preterm birth and infant mortality.

Even more troubling, our team of economic researchers and hydrologists found that PFAS exposure increases the likelihood of extremely low-weight and extremely preterm births, which are strongly associated with lifelong health challenges.

What wells showed us about PFAS risks

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have captured the attention of the public and regulators in recent years for good reason. These man-made compounds persist in the environment, accumulate in human bodies and may cause harm even at extremely low concentrations.

Most current knowledge about the reproductive effects of PFAS comes from laboratory studies on animals such as rats, or from correlations between PFAS levels in human blood and health outcomes.

Both approaches have important limitations. Rats and humans have different bodies, exposures and living conditions. And independent factors, such as kidney functioning, may in some cases be the true drivers of health problems.

We wanted to learn about the effects of PFAS on real-world human lives in a way that comes as close as possible to a randomized experiment. Intentionally exposing people to PFAS would be unethical, but the environment gave us a natural experiment of its own.

We looked at the locations of wells that supply New Hampshire residents with drinking water and how those locations related to birth outcomes.

We collected data on all births in the state from 2010 to 2019 and zoomed in on the 11,539 births that occurred within 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) of a site known to be contaminated with PFAS and where the mothers were served by public water systems. Some contamination came from industries, other from landfills or firefighting activities.

PFAS from contaminated sites slowly migrate down through soil into groundwater, where they move downstream with the groundwater’s flow. This created a simple but powerful contrast: pregnant women whose homes received water from wells that were downstream, in groundwater terms, from the PFAS source were likely to have been exposed to PFAS from the contaminated site, but those who received water from wells that were upstream of those sites should not have been exposed.

Using outside data on PFAS testing, we confirmed that PFAS levels were indeed greater in “downstream” wells than in “upstream” wells.

The locations of utilities’ drinking water wells are sensitive data that are not publicly available, so the women likely would not have known whether they were exposed. Prior to the state beginning to test for PFAS in 2016, they may not have even known the nearby site had PFAS.

PFAS connections to the riskiest births

We found what we believe is clear evidence of harm from PFAS exposure.

Women who received water from wells downstream of PFAS-contaminated sites had on average a 43% greater chance of having a low-weight baby, defined as under 5.5 pounds (2,500 grams) at birth, than those receiving water from upstream wells with no other PFAS sources nearby. Those downstream had a 20% greater chance of a preterm birth, defined as before 37 weeks, and a 191% greater chance of the infant not surviving its first year.

Per 100,000 births, this works out to 2,639 additional low-weight births, 1,475 additional preterm births and 611 additional deaths in the first year of life.

Looking at the cases with the lowest birth weights and earliest preterm births, we found that the women receiving water from wells downstream from PFAS sources had a 180% greater chance of a birth under 2.2 pounds (1,000 grams) and a 168% greater chance of a birth before 28 weeks than those with upstream wells. Per 100,000 births, that’s about 607 additional extremely low-weight births and 466 additional extremely preterm births.

PFAS contamination is costly

When considering regulations to control PFAS, it helps to express the benefits of PFAS cleanup in monetary terms to compare them to the costs of cleanup.

Researchers use various methods to put a dollar value on the cost of low-weight and preterm births based on their higher medical bills, lower subsequent health and decreased lifetime earnings.

We used the New Hampshire data and locations of PFAS-contaminated sites in 11 other states with detailed PFAS testing to estimate costs from PFAS exposure nationwide related to low birth weight, preterm births and infant mortality.

The results are eye-opening. We estimate that the effects of PFAS on each year’s low-weight births cost society about US$7.8 billion over the lifetimes of those babies, with more babies born every year.

We found the effects of PFAS on preterm births and infant mortality cost the U.S. about $5.6 billion over the lifetimes of those babies born each year, with some of these costs overlapping with the costs associated with low-weight births.

An analysis produced for the American Water Works Association estimated that removing PFAS from drinking water to meet the EPA’s PFAS limits would cost utilities alone $3.8 billion on an annual basis. These costs could ultimately fall on water customers, but the broader public also bears much of the cost of harm to fetuses.

We believe that just the reproductive health benefits of protecting water systems from PFAS contamination could justify the EPA’s rule.

Treating PFAS

There is still much to learn about the risks from PFAS and how to avoid harm.

We studied the health effects of PFOA and PFOS, two “long-chain” species of PFAS that were the most widely used types in the U.S. They are no longer produced in the U.S., but they are still present in soil and groundwater. Future work could focus on newer, “short-chain” PFAS, which may have different health impacts.

PFAS are in many types of products, and there are many routes for exposure, including through food. Effective treatment to remove PFAS from water is an area of ongoing research, but the long-chain PFAS we studied can be removed from water with activated carbon filters, either at the utility level or inside one’s home.

Our results indicate that pregnant women have special reason to be concerned about exposure to long-chain PFAS through drinking water. If pregnant women suspect their drinking water may contain PFAS, we believe they should strongly consider installing water filters that can remove PFAS and then replacing those filters on a regular schedule.

Ashley Langer receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Bo Guo and Derek Lemoine 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. PFAS in pregnant women’s drinking water puts their babies at higher risk, study finds – https://theconversation.com/pfas-in-pregnant-womens-drinking-water-puts-their-babies-at-higher-risk-study-finds-270051

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Vivian Ho, Professor and Chair of Health Economics, Rice University

Health insurance premiums in the U.S. significantly increased between 1999 and 2024, outpacing the rate of worker earnings by three times, according to our newly published research in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Premiums can rise if the costs of the medical services they cover increase. Using consumer price indices for the main components of medical care – such as services provided in clinics and hospitals as well as administrative expenses – based on federal data and data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, we found that the cost of hospital services increased the most, while the cost of physician services and prescription drugs rose more slowly.

Some of the premium increases can be attributed to an increase in hospital outpatient visits and coverage of GLP-1 drugs. But research, including our own, suggests that premiums have rapidly escalated mostly because health system consolidation – when hospitals and other health care entities merge – has led hospitals to raise prices well above their costs.

Hospital CEOs prioritize profit

Hospitals are aggressively raising their prices because hospital CEOs have incentives to do so.

One study found that for nonprofit health systems, the greatest pay increases between 2012 and 2019 went to hospital CEOs who grew the profits and size of their organizations the most. However, the financial reward of delivering above-average quality of care declined. Increased charity care – free or discounted health services nonprofit hospitals must provide some of their patients who cannot afford medical care – was not significantly tied to CEO compensation.

Board members set performance criteria that determine the base salary and bonus payments for CEOs. Over half of board members at top U.S. hospitals have professional backgrounds in finance or business. As a result, researchers and advocates have raised concerns that financial success is the dominant priority at these institutions.

One way to help ensure that nonprofit hospitals make the health of their local communities a top priority is to require their boards to disclose their executive compensation guidelines for salary and bonuses, similar to the information that for-profit health care companies disclose to their stockholders. The general public could pressure companies to put greater weight on affordability and quality of care when setting performance targets for nonprofit hospital executives.

Some economists suggest that hospital prices be regulated. This approach involves capping prices for health care services at the most expensive hospitals and restricting price growth for all hospitals. Regulators would also focus on flexible but service-specific oversight to quickly respond to unintended market disruptions.

What employers can do

Costs for health insurance coverage provided by employers are expected to surge by 9.5% in 2026.

Employers, who bear the bulk of premium increases when purchasing insurance for their workers, could include more price sensitivity when designing benefits for their employees to help keep insurance affordable for workers.

One study found that a health insurance plan that introduced three copayment levels corresponding to three hospital tiers of low, medium and high prices achieved savings of 8% per hospital stay after three years, with no evidence of a reduction in quality.

Roughly one-third of large employers are offering nontraditional health plans in 2026. For example, a variable copay plan has no or low deductibles and sets higher copayments for services at providers charging higher fees.

Holding hospitals to account

The mission statements of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the U.S. often express a desire to improve the health of the communities they serve, especially the most vulnerable.

Restraining price growth among nonprofit hospitals would introduce greater price competition to the health care market, likely forcing for-profit providers to lower their prices as well.

Vivian Ho has received grant funding from HCSC Affordability Cures Initiative and ArnoldVentures. She is a Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy

Salpy Kanimian 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. Health insurance premiums rose nearly 3x the rate of worker earnings over the past 25 years – https://theconversation.com/health-insurance-premiums-rose-nearly-3x-the-rate-of-worker-earnings-over-the-past-25-years-271450

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Steven Lautzenheiser, Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Tennessee

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

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Why can’t I wiggle my toes individually, like I can with my fingers? – Vincent, age 15, Arlington, Virginia

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One of my favorite activities is going to the zoo where I live in Knoxville when it first opens and the animals are most active. On one recent weekend, I headed to the chimpanzees first.

Their breakfast was still scattered around their enclosure for them to find. Ripley, one of the male chimpanzees, quickly gathered up some fruits and vegetables, sometimes using his feet almost like hands. After he ate, he used his feet to grab the fire hoses hanging around the enclosure and even held pieces of straw and other toys in his toes.

I found myself feeling a bit envious. Why can’t people use our feet like this, quickly and easily grasping things with our toes just as easily as we do with our fingers?

I’m a biological anthropologist who studies the biomechanics of the modern human foot and ankle, using mechanical principles of movement to understand how forces affect the shape of our bodies and how humans have changed over time. Your muscles, brain and how human feet evolved all play a part in why you can’t wiggle individual toes one by one.

Comparing humans to a close relative

Humans are primates, which means we belong to the same group of animals that includes apes like Riley the chimp. In fact, chimpanzees are our closest genetic relatives, sharing almost 98.8% of our DNA.

Evolution is part of the answer to why chimpanzees have such dexterous toes while ours seem much more clumsy.

Our very ancient ancestors probably moved around the way chimpanzees do, using both their arms and legs. But over time our lineage started walking on two legs. Human feet needed to change to help us stay balanced and to support our bodies as we walk upright. It became less important for our toes to move individually than to keep us from toppling over as we moved through the world in this new way.

Human hands became more important for things such as using tools, one of the hallmark skills of human beings. Over time, our fingers became better at moving on their own. People use their hands to do lots of things, such as drawing, texting or playing a musical instrument. Even typing this article is possible only because my fingers can make small, careful and controlled movements.

People’s feet and hands evolved for different purposes.

Muscles that move your fingers or toes

Evolution brought these differences about by physically adapting our muscles, bones and tendons to better support walking and balance. Hands and feet have similar anatomy; both have five fingers or toes that are moved by muscles and tendons. The human foot contains 29 muscles that all work to help you walk and stay balanced when you stand. In comparison, a hand has 34 muscles.

Most of the muscles of your foot let you point your toes down, like when you stand on tiptoes, or lift them up, like when you walk on your heels. These muscles also help feet roll slightly inward or outward, which lets you keep your balance on uneven ground. All these movements work together to help you walk and run safely.

The big toe on each foot is special because it helps push your body forward when you walk and has extra muscles just for its movement. The other four toes don’t have their own separate muscles. A few main muscles in the bottom of your foot and in your calf move all four toes at once. Because they share muscles, those toes can wiggle, but not very independently like your fingers can. The calf muscles also have long tendons that reach into the foot; they’re better at keeping you steady and helping you walk than at making tiny, precise movements.

In contrast, six main muscle groups help move each finger. The fingers share these muscles, which sit mostly in the forearm and connect to the fingers by tendons. The thumb and pinky have extra muscles that let you grip and hold objects more easily. All of these muscles are specialized to allow careful, controlled movements, such as writing.

So, yes, I have more muscles dedicated to moving my fingers, but that is not the only reason I can’t wiggle my toes one by one.

Divvying up brain power

You also need to look inside your brain to understand why toes and fingers work differently. Part of your brain called the motor cortex tells your body how to move. It’s made of cells called neurons that act like tiny messengers, sending signals to the rest of your body.

Your motor cortex devotes many more neurons to controlling your fingers than your toes, so it can send much more detailed instructions to your fingers. Because of the way your motor cortex is organized, it takes more “brain power,” meaning more signals and more activity, to move your fingers than your toes.

Even though you can’t grab things with your feet like Ripley the chimp can, you can understand why.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Steven Lautzenheiser 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 can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like my fingers? – https://theconversation.com/why-cant-i-wiggle-my-toes-one-at-a-time-like-my-fingers-256281

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Shelly M. Wagers, Associate Professor of Criminology, University of South Florida

Most Americans imagine human trafficking as a violent kidnapping or a “stranger danger” crime – someone abducted from a parking lot or trapped in a shipping container brought in from another country.

In fact, trafficking rarely takes this form.

In most cases, traffickers spend months or even years building trust and creating emotional and economic bonds with their victims. They use a variety of coercion and control techniques such as emotional abuse, forced criminality, financial abuse, and physical and sexual abuse to entrap their victims.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators are making money off their victims’ unpaid labor, including unwanted sex work. Human trafficking is estimated to be a US$172 billion industry.

The story of Jeffrey Epstein is just one example of how traffickers use a combination of manipulation, economic dependency and coercion – rather than physical captivity – to entrap vulnerable people and slowly erode their autonomy. Many victims don’t even realize they’re being exploited due to the manipulations of their traffickers.

Epstein’s crimes have attracted the national spotlight due to the fame and power of his clientele. His case demonstrates the harsh reality that human trafficking is far more common and complex than most people imagine.

We are criminologists who research human trafficking. In 2020, we founded the University of South Florida’s Trafficking in Persons Risk to Resilience Lab, known as the TIP lab, to study human trafficking in the state of Florida.

We know that labor and sex trafficking hide in plain sight, embedded in ordinary settings such as hotels, restaurants, farms, massage businesses and private homes.

Most victims are trafficked by someone they know or trust – a family member, intimate partner or employer. Many continue to go to school or work while being exploited.

Misconceptions about what trafficking looks like have made it harder to see and harder to measure. The available data on this crime and its victims has long been fragmented, incomplete and inconsistent. Law enforcement, government organizations such as health departments, and nonprofits that provide advocacy and victim services collect information differently. The same case could be counted multiple times by different agencies, while other victims go entirely uncounted, making it nearly impossible to understand the true scope of trafficking and effectively fight it.

Florida steps up

To address this problem, Florida in 2023 passed Senate Bill 7064, a law requiring all state and local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations that receive federal or state funding to send their human trafficking data to the USF TIP lab.

We developed TIPSTR, Florida’s statewide repository for anonymous human trafficking data. This single, consistent database is the most comprehensive data resource on human trafficking in any state in the U.S.

Our team compiled anonymous data from more than 30 state agencies and nonprofit organizations, including the Florida Department of Children and Families, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.

We also conducted a self-report survey in 2024 to learn more about trafficking victims living in Florida. The survey was administered by YouGov using a representative sample of 2,500 Florida residents. And we established BRIGHT – Bridging Resources and Information Gaps in Human Trafficking – which connects survivors directly with services such as housing, mental health counseling, transportation and more, helping them move from crisis to stability. Besides serving as a resource for trafficking victims, BRIGHT allows us to measure and track the availability of victim services relative to the need for them.

Since starting TIPSTR in 2023, we’ve been putting all of the data together to create a picture of the complexities, depth and breadth of trafficking, as well as the resources that address the problem, both statewide and in each of Florida’s 67 counties.

Why Florida faces higher risk

Florida’s economy and geography create a mix of risk factors for trafficking that are distinct from most other states.

With its large tourism, agriculture, construction and entertainment industries, the state depends heavily on temporary and mobile workforces. Its international airports and seaports connect it to global markets. Large sporting events and other entertainment bring in visitors looking for “fun in the sun” from all over the U.S. and the world.

All of these features make Florida economically vibrant – but they also create vulnerabilities. Transient labor markets, seasonal employment and high migration make it easier for traffickers to exploit workers and harder for authorities to detect exploitation. Often, buyers travel into Florida as tourists with the idea that “what happens in Florida stays in Florida,” creating a market for sex trafficking.

What we’ve found so far

2024 was the first full year for which we collected data, and we published our findings in July 2025 in the 2024 TIPSTR Report. The report demonstrates both the scale of the problem and the importance of reliable data.

The report also analyzes Florida counties with populations above 500,000, evaluating each county’s risk, resilience and response capacity on a scale from low to high.

Our self-report survey found that an estimated 500,000 current Florida residents were exploited or trafficked at work, and an estimated 200,000 were trafficked for sex. Minors made up half of those trafficked for sex and a quarter of those exploited at work. Although many of these survivors were exploited outside of Florida, these people need services locally to help get their lives on track.

Of those reporting human trafficking, only 9% to 12% reported this crime to law enforcement, confirming our concerns that it remains largely hidden from view. This is why it’s critical that TIPSTR doesn’t solely rely on law enforcement data.

Our analysis of the available data revealed wide variation across Florida counties in both the level of risk and the robustness of response systems. Some regions show strong resilience due to coordinated task forces and survivor services, while others struggle with underreporting and limited resources.

Translating data into action

At the same time, there are encouraging signs. The TIPSTR data shows prosecutions are increasing, and coordination among law enforcement, service providers and community organizations has strengthened.

Going forward, we hope our analysis of the data collected by TIPSTR will help the reporting agencies find new ways to respond. And tracking trends can allow policymakers to measure the effectiveness of programs run by different groups.

In fact, this is already happening. One sheriff’s office shared with us that when it saw how many illicit massage businesses were in its county, it started investigating them. In another instance, a nonprofit told us it had used the report to show why it needs more funding to expand its programs.

Seeing where trafficking is most concentrated and where services are missing is already helping the Florida Legislative Working Group on Human Trafficking identify potential policy changes.

Law enforcement can now use TIPSTR’s cross-agency data to connect cases. Service providers can coordinate care across counties, reducing duplication and ensuring continuity for survivors.

We hope that the report will also be used to develop broader awareness campaigns and better victim identification practices.

The importance of a long-term database

The system we’ve created will allow us to track the data for years to come. From a research perspective, this is critical, because it means our team can assess whether new policies and prevention strategies are making a measurable impact over time.

As criminologists, we believe that what Florida has built through TIPSTR can serve as a model for other states. Data alone cannot end human trafficking, but without it, we are fighting a hidden problem we cannot fully see.

Read more stories from The Conversation about Florida.

Shelly M. Wagers receives funding from National Institute of Justice and Mel Greene Foundation.

Joan A. Reid receives funding from National Institute of Justice and Mel Greene Foundation.

– ref. Florida’s new reporting system is shining a light on human trafficking in the Sunshine State – https://theconversation.com/floridas-new-reporting-system-is-shining-a-light-on-human-trafficking-in-the-sunshine-state-265935