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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

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Seth T. Kannarr, Ph.D. Candidate in Geography, University of Tennessee

Ocmulgee Mounds, a site in central Georgia with 12,000 years of Indigenous history, may be on the verge of becoming the newest U.S. national park. This is the flagship designation of the National Park Service system, which includes many types of properties in addition to formally designated national parks.

Although this redesignation may not include much change for the site itself, it could mean quite a lot to visitors, supporters and locals alike.

The 3,000-acre park protects land and features important to the Mississippian culture, which built the mounds there starting roughly 3,000 years ago, and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, for which the site is an ancestral homeland.

The site includes seven enormous ceremonial and burial mounds made of earth, the largest of which is 55 feet (15 meters) tall and covers about 2 acres, as well as a museum containing millions of cultural artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, jewelry and bells.

The National Park Service has managed the site since the 1930s, first as a national monument and since 2019, as a national historical park. There are no legal or practical differences in protection between these redesignations, though the branding and marketing of the site may change.

As a geographer who studies parks and the naming of places, I have seen that when a National Park Service unit is redesignated as a national park, as a pending bill in Congress currently proposes for Ocmulgee Mounds, it does not typically change the funding available to run the site. That’s especially true at a time when National Park Service funding and personnel are being cut. However, a park redesignation does serve political purposes and affects how visitors perceive that park.

How parks are designated

The National Park Service manages 433 units with 19 different designations, such as “national battlefields,” “national lakeshores” and “national scenic trails.” Only 63 of these units carry the formal title or designation of “national park.”

All but one of these categories can be bestowed only by Congress. National monuments, however, can be created by the president directly, under the provisions of the Antiquities Act of 1906.

For example, the Antiquities Act allowed President Barack Obama to designate 1.3 million acres in Utah as Bears Ears National Monument in a December 2016 proclamation. That same act allowed President Donald Trump to shrink the protected area to 200,000 acres in 2017 – and President Joe Biden to re-expand it to 1.3 million acres in 2021.

Other examples of redesignation

In rare cases, a community, group or other organization proposes adding an area that is not currently managed by the National Park Service to the system, but this takes a lot of time and is different from the more common process of changing the formal designation of a property already within the system.

For instance, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore became Indiana Dunes National Park in 2019. That same year, White Sands National Monument in New Mexico became White Sands National Park. And in 2020, New River Gorge National River in West Virginia became New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

Why redesignations make a difference

My analysis of the contentious redesignation of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis to Gateway Arch National Park in 2018 found that it was not done to offer additional protection to this site of national importance. Rather, the move was meant to take advantage of the public significance of the “national park” label and thereby attract more tourists and tourism revenue to the local economy.

The effort to make it a national park was part of a local campaign to renovate the underground visitor center, revitalize the park grounds and increase tourism. But the law that formalized the change included no additional funding, resources or protections for the Gateway Arch.

Changing the designation contradicted the park service’s own declaration that the term “national park” should be used for an area that “contains a variety of resources and encompasses large land or water areas to help provide adequate protection of the resources.”

During congressional hearings, the deputy director of the National Park Service, Robert Vogel, recommended the site not be labeled a national park but rather a national monument, because the site “is too small and limited in the range of resources the site protects and interprets to be called a national park.”

Gateway Arch National Park is now the smallest-area park in the U.S., at less than 200 acres, and is home to a large steel arch, an open lawn area, a museum and a single historic building – a courthouse where one of the Dred Scott trials was heard, along with other civil rights cases. It does not have the wildlife viewing, spectacular geologic features, outdoor recreation opportunities and sense of wilderness that the public has come to expect from national parks.

The park’s website admits “it is unusual for a national park to have no natural plant life” and describes the park as adjacent to the “concrete jungle of downtown St. Louis.”

What actually would change for Ocmulgee Mounds?

The redesignation effort for Ocmulgee Mounds has two primary aspects. First, it would declare the area a national park.

Second, it would add additional land to this protected area, designating that portion as a national preserve. The distinction matters: Public hunting, including traditional Indigenous hunting, is not allowed in national parks, but it is allowed in national preserves. And while national parks are managed by the National Park Service under the Department of Interior, national preserves can be managed in collaborative partnership with other groups, including local Indigenous people with cultural ties to the land.

The changes for Ocmulgee Mounds are supported by members of both political parties in both houses of Congress. And the redesignation does not appear to have triggered opposition from local communities, who in other places have objected for several reasons, including fear of increased tourism and desire to preserve any long-standing uses of the land that would be banned if it were to become a national park.

There are redesignation efforts underway seeking to make national parks in other locations as well, including the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona, Buffalo National River in Arkansas, and Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin.

The only real changes in these places, though, would be in marketing – the signs, brochures and merchandise sold in gift shops. But these changes would have an important effect: The tagline of “new national park” markets well and is believed to help attract more visitors to the site. But it won’t actually protect these landscapes any better than they already are under the stewardship of the National Park Service.

Seth T. Kannarr 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. What does it mean to be a new national park? Ocmulgee Mounds in Georgia may soon find out – https://theconversation.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-new-national-park-ocmulgee-mounds-in-georgia-may-soon-find-out-268474

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Arabinda Basistha, Associate Professor of Economics, West Virginia University

What’s the point of monetary policy?

For most of us, the main impact tends to be how much we have to pay to borrow to buy a house or car. But for the Federal Reserve, the purpose of its monetary policy is mandated by Congress.

This is widely known as the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate: promoting maximum employment and stable prices. The Fed itself refers to these two objectives regularly in its Federal Open Market Committee statements announcing its monetary policy decisions.

A third objective of monetary policy, however, is less well-known: moderate long-term interest rates.

This “third mandate” was a big news story in September 2025, when the Trump administration’s newly appointed Fed governor, Stephen Miran, referred to it in his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Financial markets paid close attention to this aspect of the testimony because the comments suggested that Miran and other presidential appointees may focus on this third mandate – and on driving down long-term borrowing costs – more than the Fed has in the recent past.

I’ve been closely following how the Fed conducts monetary policy for many years. Miran is correct that Congress has tasked the U.S. central bank with all three of these objectives – but that’s not the whole story. In fact, none of these goals were originally spelled out in the act that set up the Fed over a century ago.

Since then, the Fed’s goals have been revised several times – typically in response to a crisis.

The Fed’s shifting goals

The original purpose of the Fed, as explained in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, was to provide flexibility in the nation’s currency supply and to supervise the U.S. banking system. The current dual mandate was not part of the original goals of the Fed.

Instead, its core goal was to reduce the frequent banking panics that were costly to the economy and sharply increased interest rates.

The first big change in the goals, in response to the Great Depression, was the Employment Act of 1946 that stated the goal of federal government policy – and, therefore that of the Fed – is to “promote maximum employment, production and purchasing power.”

This is where the two goals of the dual mandate first began to emerge, with purchasing power implying the Fed needed to keep inflation low.

Following the macroeconomic instability of the 1970s with high unemployment and high inflation, Congress enacted the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977 that formalized the Fed mandate: “maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

In other words, Congress gave the Fed three mandates to follow in monetary policy.

What happened to the third mandate?

So why doesn’t the Fed still talk about that third mandate?

Part of the answer is that moderate long-term interest rates are a natural by-product of successfully managing the other two.

In pursuit of low inflation and maximum employment, the Fed primarily uses a short-term interest rate, known as the Federal Funds rate. When journalists report that the Fed raised or lowered interest rates, this refers to the so-called target rate that the central bank uses to control the Fed Funds rate. For example, the current target rate is a range of 3.75% to 4%, while the effective Fed Funds rate is 3.89%. Banks use the funds rate as the cost other banks must pay to borrow reserve funds for one day.

However, most of the interest rates that matter to people, businesses and the economy at large have much longer terms – such as five, 10 or 30 years. Examples include mortgages, car loans and corporate bonds. The Fed does not directly control these longer-term interest rates, which are set by financial markets.

But studies have found that the Fed’s policy decisions can influence long-term rates, primarily due to “expectations theory.” That theory argues that long-term rates reflect financial markets’ expectations of future short-term rates.

So if markets believe the Fed has inflation under control, they tend to keep long-term rates on mortgages and everything else low because they don’t expect the Fed will increase its target rate. If inflation is running high, long-term rates tend to rise because markets expect the Fed to have to lift its short-term rate to deal with it. But if unemployment is running high, long-term rates tend to fall because markets expect the Fed to reduce its short-term rate to deal with that.

Longer-term rates are, therefore, not independent of the dual mandate of the Fed. They are often an outcome of how successfully the Fed is meeting the dual mandate of full employment and stable prices currently and in the future.

As a result, the Fed doesn’t typically talk about this third mandate.

Promoting economic stability

That said, the Fed has, at times, although very rarely, influenced long-term rates directly.

For example, in late 2010, following the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the Fed purchased billions of dollars’ worth of long-term Treasury bonds and other securities – a program known as “QE2” for quantitative easing – in an effort to lower the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses. The Fed did something similar in 1961 with Operation Twist, similarly with an aim to support the U.S. economy by reducing long-term borrowing costs.

But even this phase of quantitative easing was primarily about meeting the Fed’s dual mandate. More specifically, since inflation was already low, the Fed was trying to boost hiring in the wake of the Great Recession.

The Fed is keenly aware that longer-term interest rates that are not aligned with its dual mandate can be an important source of instability in the economy. A modern central bank’s primary goal is to promote stability in the economy, so longer-term interest rates should be at levels that are appropriate to ensure current and future economic stability.

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

– ref. How keeping down borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans is built into the Fed’s ‘dual mandate’ – https://theconversation.com/how-keeping-down-borrowing-costs-for-mortgages-and-other-loans-is-built-into-the-feds-dual-mandate-268052

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By David R. King, Higdon Professor of Management, Florida State University

When it comes to major U.S. industries, three tends to be the magic number.

Historically, auto manufacturing was long dominated by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors – the so-called “Big Three,” which at one point controlled over 60% of the U.S. auto market. A dominant trio shows up elsewhere, too, in everything from the U.S. defense market – think Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrup Grumman – to cellphone service providers (AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon). The same goes for the U.S. airline industry in which American, Delta and United fly higher than the rest.

The rule of three also applies to what Americans watch; the glory days of television was dominated by three giants: ABC, CBS and NBC.

Now, in the digital age, we are rapidly moving to a “Big Three” dominating streaming services: Netflix, Amazon and Disney.

The latest step in that process is Netflix’s plan to acquire Warner Bros. for US$72 billion. If approved, the move would solidify Netflix as the dominant streaming platform.

When streams converge

Starting life as a mail DVD subscription service, Netflix moved into streaming movies and TV shows in 2007, becoming a first-mover into the sphere.

Being an early adopter as viewing went from cable and legacy to online and streaming gave Netflix an advantages in also developing support technology and using subscriber data to create new content.

The subsequent impact was Netflix became a market leader, with quarterly profits now far exceeding its competitors, which often report losses.

Today, even without the Warner Bros. acquisition, Netflix has a dominant global base of over 300 million subscribers. Amazon Prime comes second with roughly 220 million subscribers, and Disney – which includes both Disney+ and Hulu – is third, with roughly 196 million subscribers. This means that between them, these three companies already control over 60% of the streaming market.

Netflix’s lead would only be reinforced by the proposed deal with Warner Bros., as it would add ownership of Warner subsidiary HBO Max, which is currently the fourth-biggest streamer in the U.S. with a combined 128 million subscribers. While some of them will overlap, Netflix is likely to still gain subscribers and better retain them with a broader selection of content.

Netflix’s move to acquire Warner Bros. also follows prior entertainment industry consolidation, driven by a desire to control content to retain streaming service subscribers.

In 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion. Three years later, Amazon acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.5 billion.

Should the Netflix deal go through, it would continue this trend of streaming consolidation. It would also leave a clear gap at the top between the emerging Big Three and other services, such as Paramount+ with 79 million subscribers and Apple TV+, which has around 45 million. Paramount+ was also a rival bidder for Warner Bros., and while it is protesting Netflix’s deal for Warner Bros., it likely will need to pursue other options to remain relevant in streaming.

Why industries come in threes

But why do industries converge to a handful of companies?

As an expert on mergers, I know the answer comes down to market forces relating to competition, which tends to drive consolidation of an industry into three to five firms.

From a customer perspective, there is a need for multiple options. Having more than one option avoids monopolistic practices that can see prices fixed at a higher rate. Competition between more than one big player is also a strong incentive for additional innovation to improve a product or service.

For these reasons, governments – in the U.S. and over 100 other countries – have antitrust laws and practices to avoid any industry displaying limited competition.

However, as industries become more stable, growth tends to slow and remaining businesses are forced to compete over a largely fixed market. This can separate companies into industry leaders and laggards. While leaders enjoy greater stability and predictable profits, laggards struggle to remain profitable.

Lagging companies often combine to increase their market share and reduce costs.

The result is that consolidating industries quite often land on three main players as a source of stability – one or two risks falling into the pitfalls of monopolies and duopolies, while many more than three to five can struggle to be profitable in mature industries.

What’s ahead for the laggards

The long-term viability of companies outside the “Big Three” streamers is in doubt, as the main players get bigger and smaller companies are unable to offer as much content.

A temporary solution for smaller streamers to gain subscribers is to offer teaser rates that later increase for people that forget to cancel until companies take more permanent steps. But lagging services will also face increased pressure to exit streaming by licensing content to the leading streaming services, cease operations or sell their services and content.

Additionally, companies outside the Big Three could be tempted to acquire smaller services in an attempt to maintain market share.

There are already rumors that Paramount, which was a competing bidder for Warner Bros., may seek to acquire Starz or create a joint venture with Universal, which owns Peacock.

Apple shows no immediate plan of discontinuing Apple TV+, but that may be due to the company’s high profitability and an overall cash flow that limits pressures to end its streaming service.

Still, if the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal completes, it will likely increase the valuation of other lagging streaming services due to increased scarcity of valuable content and subscribers. This is due to competitive limits that restrict the Big Three from getting bigger, making the combination of smaller streaming services more valuable.

This is reinforced by shareholders expecting similar or greater premiums from prior deals, driving the need to pay higher prices for the fewer remaining available assets.

The cost to consumers

So what does this all mean for consumers?

I believe that in general, consumers will largely not be impacted when it comes to the overall cost of entertainment, as inflationary pressures for food and housing limit available income for streaming services.

But where they access content will continue to shift away from cable television and movie theaters.

Greater stability in the streaming industry through consolidation into a Big Three model only confirms the decline in traditional cable.

Netflix’s rationale in acquiring Warner Bros. is likely to enable it to offer streaming at a lower price than the combined price of separate subscriptions, but more than Netflix alone.

This could be achieved through additional subscription tiers for Netflix subscribers wanting to add HBO Max content. Beyond competition with other members of the “Big Three,” another reason why Netflix is unlikely to raise prices significantly is that it will likely commit to not doing so in order to get the merger approved.

Netflix’s goal is to ensure it remains consumer’s first choice for streaming TV and films. So while streaming is fast becoming a Big Three industry, Netflix’s plan is to remain at the top of the triangle.

David R. King 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. Netflix-Warner deal would drive streaming market further down the road of ‘Big 3’ domination – https://theconversation.com/netflix-warner-deal-would-drive-streaming-market-further-down-the-road-of-big-3-domination-271466

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Nick Lehr, Senior Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

In early 2025, in an effort to facilitate its deportation goals, the Trump administration entered into hundreds of agreements with local police departments to essentially deputize them to act as federal immigration agents.

The bulk of these agreements were signed in Republican strongholds such as Texas and Florida, places where the immigration policies of state leaders aligned with those of the Trump administration.

But as Trump ramped up his deportation efforts over the course of 2025, how would immigration enforcement play out in sanctuary cities and states?

Sanctuary policies aim to focus local policing on community safety rather than immigration enforcement. In 2016, there were approximately 340 of these sanctuary jurisdictions in the U.S. By the start of Trump’s second term, there were just over 1,000 of them

Would local police in sanctuary cities and states step in to protect someone they knew hadn’t committed a felony or was a citizen? Would officers in these places admonish ICE agents for failing to follow proper protocol?

Instead, over the course of 2025, videos from sanctuary jurisdictions – including Chicago, California and Worcester, Massachusetts – showed local police acting more like auxiliary enforcers.

In Peter Mancina’s forthcoming book “On the Side of ICE: Policing Immigrants in a Sanctuary State,” he explores the cultural, bureaucratic and political roadblocks to enacting immigrant-friendly policing reforms, with a focus on New Jersey, where Mancina works as an adjunct law professor at Rutgers University.

In an interview, edited for length and clarity, Mancina explains why sanctuary policies don’t necessarily change what happens on the ground.

The adoption of sanctuary policies grew dramatically during the first Trump administration. Yet at various points in the book, you call them a “rebrand,” a “public relations facade” and “immigration enforcement assistance with an immigrant friendly face.” What’s behind those characterizations?

There’s an internal tension to sanctuary policies. There’s this broader sanctuary movement that’s been around since roughly 1980, which came about largely in response to U.S. involvement in Central American civil wars and protecting immigrants fleeing these and other conflicts.

The activists started working with city officials sympathetic to their cause in cities such as San Francisco to create resolutions protecting immigrants that were largely symbolic. After the San Francisco Police Department was found to be ignoring the resolution, the city created the country’s first sanctuary ordinance in 1989. With this ordinance, activists hoped that local police could be prevented from collaborating with federal immigration officers.

But many activists assumed that the kind of ethics and the values that existed in the sanctuary movement could actually be taken up in policy and implemented, because there’s this notion that when you pass a law or ordinance it will be implemented as written.

A major part of the book is to say, “Actually, that’s not how policy works.” It fits within these bureaucratic cultures. And in policing culture, there’s already this web of relationships that local cops have with federal agents, and these cultures have their own value systems. Something that people don’t really talk about is that local police aren’t just used by ICE as these local enforcers of immigration law. In fact, a lot of times local law enforcement look to ICE as partners and collaborators.

Where does the breakdown happen between policy and practice?

These current policies largely acknowledge the fact that the majority of the undocumented people that local law enforcement encounter don’t have criminal backgrounds. They say that what we want to target are these really terrible people who are the violent criminals.

These criminals are framed as the exception to the rule. But these exceptions still end up leading to quite a few people being transferred by local police and jails to ICE. And the exceptions can easily be exploited or broadened by the boots on the ground – the police tasked with following the policy – because there’s often this gray area in the language.

So what ends up happening is that there really isn’t any sort of major decrease in deportations in sanctuary jurisdictions. In 2018, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued his Immigrant Trust Directive, which barred local law enforcement from helping federal authorities carry out civil-immigration enforcement. The last year before it was implemented, local police turned 1,000 people being held in local jails over to ICE. After it went into effect, that number went down slightly the following year, to 700 people. That’s still a lot of undocumented people being turned over. And it’s because local police were able to apply those “exceptional circumstances” in many of those cases.

In Trump 2.0, roughly two-thirds of immigrants in the custody of ICE have no criminal background. During the Biden administration, 42% of them had no criminal background.

In the book, you relay this one instance in New Jersey where ICE calls in the local police as backup, and the local police – aware of the state’s new Immigrant Trust Directive – describe their role on the scene to local activists and passersby as “protecting public safety.” Yet you point out that they actually are helping ICE, because their cars are parked to block the street so the targeted immigrant can’t drive away.

You can have a policy, like the one that the Los Angeles City Council passed in 2024, which was basically written as a “no cooperation policy.” And still, it’s not possible to actually pull off in practice, because you then have those cases like the one you just mentioned, where even if you ban “immigration enforcement practices” like making immigration-related arrests, basic public safety policing is going to still happen, whether that’s crowd control or traffic control.

So when local police show up at an immigration home arrest or a worksite raid, they often become part of immigration enforcement by virtue of the fact that they’re there to protect pedestrians, route traffic, respond to violence or protect ICE agents.

You’ll see this on social media, when protests rapidly form to surround ICE officers during raids. Police step in to assist ICE by protecting them as they haul someone away. This turns emergency assistance and crowd control into a form of immigration enforcement itself.

Ultimately, when you get down into the procedural level of how you implement this stuff, it’s actually not possible to avoid cooperating. Complete non-cooperation and complete protection simply do not happen.

I’ve also seen local law enforcement agencies in sanctuary jurisdictions simply post all of their inmate information online. ICE agents can routinely check those databases and show up to arrest them once the inmates are released.

Under the George W. Bush administration, there was the Secure Community program, in which the Department of Homeland Security required local police to check the immigration status of anyone that they fingerprint. The Obama administration actually expanded this program. How have programs like this facilitated what you describe as a “professional kinship” between local police and federal agents?

The way I see it, local police and federal agencies have different missions and different objectives, but they see themselves as being able to help each other accomplish their various goals.

Many local police departments have long seen deportations as just another tool that they can use to get criminals off the street for good. Once they’ve arrested an undocumented person, they assume that if they’re deported, there won’t be an opportunity for them to return to the community to commit more crimes. And this view has been ingrained and reinforced through these collaborative partnerships like the Secure Communities program.

Interestingly, during the height of the Secure Communities program, (legal scholars) Adam Cox and Thomas Miles conducted a statistical analysis of 3,000 counties from 2005 to 2013 that assisted ICE by turning people over to them from local jails.

They found, across the board, that crime in these counties didn’t decrease. It sounds counterintuitive. But when most people deported through jail transfers are people with low-level jail bookings – and not serious convictions – it makes more sense. It also doesn’t stop people who are part of a criminal enterprise from figuring out a way to get back into the country after being deported.

I want to go back to that term “sanctuary.” Opponents of sanctuary policies seem to have used it as a cudgel, and I think that’s because the layperson understands “sanctuary” as total protection. You obviously show that not to be the case. Have you seen elected officials avoiding the term?

Around 2011 or 2012, officials started walking back the way they framed sanctuary policies. They were clearly sanctuary policies in terms of how they’d been crafted and what they attempt to do. But places like Chicago, for example, called theirs a “Welcoming City” ordinance.

These new terms emerged largely due to attacks by right-wing outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart. There was just a lot of bad press.

And, yeah, politicians are running away from the term: I’ve heard different ones say, you know, “This is not a sanctuary policy,” even though it’s been crafted using almost the exact same language as policies that are explicitly described as sanctuary policies.

As I noted earlier, there was a time when activists and lawmakers thought these policies really were going to stop local jails and local police from helping to deport people. They just didn’t anticipate the durability of local-federal partnerships and their tenacity in finding ways to circumvent the intentions of lawmakers.

I think over time – as the spirit of these policies continues to be violated by many local law enforcement officers – the term “sanctuary” has been used in more of an aspirational sense.

Do local officers ever get disciplined for violating sanctuary policy?

I actually studied this – separate from the book – in San Francisco, where the police chief had issued a sanctuary city order.

If an officer violates a local department order, it can go in their police file. These write-ups can add up and can lead to an actual firing under police union rules.

In every single case where there was a violation of the sanctuary rules, the only thing that was issued was a verbal admonishment. So no write-ups. It’s the equivalent of someone saying, “Don’t do that again,” and leaving it at that.

They knew their superiors were aware. So it was not nothing. In certain circumstances, those who had violated the order were told to go back to the San Francisco Police Academy for training on the sanctuary ordinance.

But none of it went into their files. You could say it was a very lenient culture around those rules.

Returning to New Jersey: Was there any follow-up on whether local police departments were adhering to the Immigrant Trust Directive?

So when the trust directive was implemented, the New Jersey attorney general’s office created training for all law enforcement officers. It was an online video that they had to watch. It was a few hours long. It was very technical. I watched it. Though some officers were allowed to do other work while watching, they all had to do it, and there was a very firm accounting of ensuring that every officer got that training.

I also know that in the first year, they required local agencies to report back any instances of cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But after that first year, the follow-up seems to have stopped altogether. There were no further documented reports.

I also managed a team of researchers that did a public records request of over 400 agencies across the state. I wanted to see whether local police departments had changed their policies to include the dictates of the Immigration Trust Directive.

I was able to get access to records from 68% of all law enforcement agencies in the state. Of those, only 55% had actually changed their procedures so they were compliant with the Immigrant Trust Directive. Keep in mind, there were still pro-immigration enforcement procedures that were already on the books from Anne Milgram’s tenure (New Jersey’s attorney general from 2007 to 2010), when officers were encouraged to inquire about immigration status. It turns out many departments didn’t even tweak these internal policies and procedures.

What has stood out to you about the deportation efforts of the second Trump administration?

What’s happening are extensions of what’s been happening over the past few decades, in terms of the federal government looking to partner with different agencies at the local, state and federal levels, whether it’s sheriff’s departments, the ATF, the FBI or the Secret Service.

But none of this coordination has ever happened to the degree we’re seeing right now. The administration is assigning people within these various agencies to do full-time immigration enforcement.

What’s been really amazing to me, too, has been the amplification of the 287(g) program. These are agreements signed with the Department of Homeland Security that permits local police officers to go out and find undocumented people to arrest and be potentially deported in the course of their everyday policing activities. So it allows them to double as a federal officer.

At the start of 2025, 135 local law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. had signed these agreements.

Now over 1,000 agencies have signed on. Every single sheriff’s office in Florida is currently under a 287(g) agreement.

Over the course of your 15 years studying sanctuary policing – either for this book or for your other studies – did you ever encounter instances where local police arrived at the scene of an ICE raid or an arrest and took the side of undocumented immigrants or citizens for one reason or another, whether that meant admonishing ICE agents for their aggressiveness or telling them, “Hey, you’re not following proper protocol.”

No, not a single time.

– ref. Are sanctuary policing policies no more than a public relations facade? – https://theconversation.com/are-sanctuary-policing-policies-no-more-than-a-public-relations-facade-269245