Mathematics anxiety is a feeling of tension and fear when dealing with numbers or performing calculations. It is a common form of academic anxiety: according to an OECD report, around 40% of students feel nervous, helpless or anxious in everyday situations involving mathematics, such as solving problems or doing maths homework.
Our new research, conducted in collaboration between the universities of Bologna, Trieste and Macerata in Italy and Loughborough University in the UK, addressed the question of whether parents may play a role in the development of children’s maths anxiety.
We wanted to find out if having a parent who struggled with maths anxiety would make it more likely that their child also felt anxious when doing maths.
The influence – or not – of anxiety
We followed 126 children from Italy from the age of three until eight, assessing their maths skills and level of maths anxiety several times along the way. We also measured their parents’ mathematics anxiety at the start of the study.
We found that, actually, having a parent with higher levels of maths anxiety did not make it more likely that their children would also have maths anxiety. This is different to what research has shown about general anxiety: growing up with a parent who suffers from anxiety is linked with a higher chance of developing anxiety.
What we did find was that the children of parents with maths anxiety did less well in maths.
Throughout the preschool years, children’s early numeracy skills were lower if their parents were more anxious about maths. And children with lower maths skills in their early years still had lower maths attainment when they were eight.
These findings are surprising, as one may expect the strong influence of school education on children’s maths skills to override any parental influence.
We also found that the relationship between parental maths anxiety and children’s mathematics development was still present when parents’ level of education was taken into account. This means that children’s lower maths achievement couldn’t be explained by their parents having a lower level of educational achievement themselves.
The impact of parents’ involvement with their children’s maths learning isn’t as clear as for literacy. SeventyFour/Shutterstock
These findings add more nuance to the broader question of how beneficial parents taking a role in their children’s maths development is.
For literacy – learning to read and write – the evidence is unanimous: parents getting involved in shared literacy activities with their children is beneficial. If parents spend more time engaging in reading books together, telling stories or talking with their children, this has a direct positive impact on children’s outcomes.
When it comes to maths, though, the picture is more mixed. Research does show that the more parents and children engage in shared maths activities, such as counting, playing board games or measuring ingredients for cooking, the more children progress in their early numeracy. But the effect is small, and individual studies may show contradictory results.
And sometimes, parents helping their children with maths may actually be linked with their children doing worse in maths. Previous research, conducted in the United States, found that when parents were anxious about maths, their children learnt less maths, and had higher maths anxiety by the end of the school year if parents were helping them with their homework.
Learning to overcome negative feelings
Our new study adds another piece to this puzzle by further showing that parents may sometimes have a negative influence on their child’s maths development, even before children go to school.
It is important to keep in mind that parental influence is just one of several factors that relate to children’s early mathematics development. Even within the same family, siblings may show big differences in their mathematics skills and confidence. Issues with mathematics may also arise due to other factors, such as dyscalculia, a mathematical learning disability.
Nevertheless, our results suggest that, all other things being equal, parents’ feelings about mathematics play a role in children’s mathematics development.
For parents concerned about their maths anxiety, it is never too late to increase your confidence in maths and to learn functional numeracy skills. You can explore adult numeracy classes or take advantage of free online resources to help boost your confidence.
You can also embrace – and help your child adopt – a growth mindset, where you recognise that making mistakes in maths is not only okay, but an important part of the learning process.
Even just speaking more positively about maths is a good start. Parents who show interest, enthusiasm and encouragement when their children engage with maths can make a big difference.
Kinga Morsanyi receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (Centre for Early Mathematics Learning; ES/W002914/1).
Carlo Tomasetto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Netflix series Adolescence has generated discussions about masculinity, male violence and the effect of “manosphere” content on boys. The manosphere is a collection of men’s rights and misogynistic groups that are interconnected through websites, blogs and forums that promote masculinity, misogyny and opposition to feminism.
Interest in the programme has even led to it being discussed in UK parliament. What is missing from these discussions, though, is a consideration of how online games, and the influencers associated with them, are also contributing to the dissemination of misogynistic ideologies and, ultimately, the radicalisation of young boys.
Generally, people associate gaming with young men, but research has shown that the number of female gamers has slowly increased in recent years. Nevertheless, the same research argued that young boys spend more time playing games.
There is a sizeable body of research looking at how gender, sexuality and interconnecting identities are represented in video games. Much of this highlights the problematic (but complex) ways such identities are portrayed. Many video games rely on stereotypical representations of gender, which position “successful” men as strong, wealthy, aggressive and heterosexual. Meanwhile, women are represented as highly sexualised, or as taking supportive roles.
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This kind of discrimination features within the underlying philosophies of the manosphere – but misogyny and male supremacism are the central factors.
Incels (which stands for “involuntarily celibate”) view themselves as unsuccessful in obtaining sex and romantic relationships with those they desire. Importantly, they view their lack of sexual or romantic partners as being beyond their own control.
Their ideologies involve viewing women as genetically inferior, manipulative and stupid. Women are simultaneously shamed for having sex while expected to owe men sex, and different men are appraised based on the degree to which they show off their “manliness”.
There is a fixation on rigid gender roles as well as perceived hierarchies based on race and gender. Within online incel spaces, any deviation from the strict gender dichotomy is vilified, weaving together misogyny, transphobia and homophobia – among multiple other prejudices.
Keir Starmer has backed Netflix’s move to show Adolescence in UK schools.
The exact mechanisms by which impressionable boys are “recruited” to join incel communities are somewhat unknown. The way people join these communities is more complex than someone on social media specifically asking people to join or promising to fix all their woes. However, work has explored how men and boys’ repeated exposure to social media that perpetuates incel ideology can normalise such worldviews.
Research on incels has shown how spending long periods on social media and gaming sites exposes young men and boys to incel content. Too much time playing video games, along with a lack of a social life and limited interaction with women and girls, have been stated by men as reasons for identifying themselves as an incel.
Playing games can be a healthy hobby, and not all gamers should be equated with incels. Indeed, multiple video game companies and gaming communities are actively working to combat prejudice. Engagement with video games alone, like any form of media, does not immediately mean that someone will adopt the underlying ideologies that media conveys.
However, the number of problematic representations within media like this creates a baseline from which manosphere ideologies can resonate and might become an entry point to more severe misogynistic ideologies. Many incels find comfort in the escapism offered by video games and online environments where prejudice is less likely to be challenged.
Radicalisation by algorithm
Due to platforms, such as TikTok, X, and Instagram prioritising engagement and profit over content quality or equality, diversity and inclusion, algorithms further contribute to the spread of incel ideologies.
Misogynistic content elicits strong reactions and controversial discussions, which tend to attract more likes, shares, comments and views. Such content is therefore more likely to be recommended and circulated by algorithms, regardless of the harms it may cause.
Video game streamers who espouse rightwing views often use streaming platforms like Rumble and social media websites such as X to spread gender-based hate. While some may not identify as incels or explicitly tell followers to join incel communities, their views align with incel ideologies.
Controversial content is more likely to be recommended by algorithms. Shutterstock/mooremedia
These platforms regularly praise themselves for being immune to “cancel culture”. However, this means that they often allow video game streamers (among other influencers) to disseminate misogynistic worldviews, conspiracy theories and ideologies associated with the manosphere more broadly.
The increase in behaviour associated with incel radicalisation does not happen in isolation. Both offline and digital environments (including online games), which normalise misogyny and interconnected prejudice, lead to societies validating impressionable young boys’ anger towards women.
One way such misogyny is validated is through repeated patterns of representation and discussions that position women as inferior to men. The onus is on us, as a society, to tackle misogyny and intersectional prejudices wherever we see them.
As researchers, we welcome the new guidance on teaching about misogyny in schools. But there is a need for more support from broader social institutions to develop interventions to prevent incel radicalisation.
We need to learn more about the specific mechanisms by which young and impressionable people are influenced to join misogynistic incel spaces, including what specific streamers and influencers they engage with. And we also need specific government policy that is explicitly informed by research on gender-based violence to tackle incel radicalisation as a gender-based issue.
Lisa Sugiura is affiliated with the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.
Frazer Heritage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Claude Raisaro, Assistant Professor, International Economics, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
Every day, 10 people die on the roads of Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
Road accidents cost Uganda US$1.2 billion annually, which is about 5% of its GDP. The cost typically arises from healthcare spending. Families face crippling medical bills and businesses lose workers.
Motorbike taxis, which are popular in Uganda, are a leading cause of accidents. They are responsible for 64% of all recorded accidents – mostly as a result of speeding.
Why do so many motorbike taxi drivers in Uganda speed? The common wisdom suggests that they do it for financial reasons. Higher speed translates to more trips, and more trips mean more income.
But a closer look reveals a more complex reality: speeding isn’t just a money decision – it’s about social pressure among motorbike taxi drivers and the need to adhere with behaviours that signal masculinity. Most drivers are male.
Uganda’s current approaches to counter speeding include fines and awareness campaigns. There is little evidence that these methods have been effective.
My recent study in Kampala challenges these traditional road safety approaches, which often fail to change behaviour. I am a behavioural economist, and my findings show offering financial incentives can work – but only if these incentives provide drivers with a socially acceptable reason to slow down.
Financial incentives need to be made public, and only work when they allow motorbike taxi drivers to justify safer behaviour to their peers. This is key, because getting road safety incentives right saves lives. It also reduces healthcare costs, lowers fuel consumption and emissions, and helps shift harmful social norms that encourage reckless driving.
Why drivers speed
My research finds that speeding among motorbike taxi drivers isn’t just a financial decision in Uganda, it’s a social one. Drivers work in tight-knit communities where reputation matters as much as income.
I collected data from a representative sample of 386 passengers and found commuters prefer safer drivers and are willing to pay up to 8% more for careful driving. Yet, speeding remains the norm.
The reason? Driving fast is a status symbol for motorbike taxi drivers.
I carried out an experiment to test whether drivers who speed are perceived more positively by their co-workers. Results are clear: fast drivers are perceived as more skilled and have a higher social status, measured as their ability to influence decisions at their taxi stations.
This presents a policy challenge: how can financial incentives encourage safer driving without making drivers feel like they are losing respect among their peers?
To test how financial incentives could encourage safer driving, I conducted an experiment in which a research team offered 360 drivers two options:
a contract that paid them a daily incentive of UGSh6,000 (US$1.64) – roughly a third of their daily income – for observing speed limits
or an equivalent lump sum cash payment with no conditions attached, including limiting a driver’s speed.
But the framing of these choices mattered.
Some drivers knew their decision would be private, meaning no one else would know if they took the safe-driving contract.
Others knew that only the safe-driving contract would be public, while the alternative lump sum cash option remained private – giving them a socially acceptable reason to slow down.
A third group knew their decision would be fully public, meaning their peers would see if they chose the safe-driving contract over the lump sum.
The results were clear. Twice as many drivers accepted the safe-driving contract when it was public and provided a justification for slower speeds.
Why? Because when the incentive was visible but also justified, drivers could explain their decision as a financial one:
I’m not driving slower because I’m scared, I’m doing it because I’m getting paid.
The design of this experiment allowed me to answer the question: what mechanism favours socially desirable behaviours when incentives are offered?
But would the drivers actually slow down?
Did it work?
To see whether these contracts actually changed driving behaviour, I conducted an impact experiment, offering incentives for two weeks and tracking drivers for six months.
Drivers were randomly offered one of the following contracts:
a private safe-driving contract – where only the driver knew about the financial reward
a public safe-driving contract – where their peers knew they were being paid to slow down
a control group – who received a contract consisting of a simple cash payment with no conditions.
The results were striking. While both safe-driving contracts reduced speeding, the public contract was nearly twice as effective as the private one. The most significant reductions were seen in extreme speeding (occurrences of 80km/h or more) – the kind most likely to cause severe accidents.
The key takeaway is that visibility makes incentives work, but only when it provides justification. If a driver had to publicly choose the safe-driving contract over another cash offer, it lost effectiveness. But when structured as a justifiable contract, it allowed drivers to slow down without social consequences.
Reframing safe driving as a smart decision, not just a rule, is important. Featuring respected drivers in safety programmes can potentially help shift perceptions of what makes a “good” driver.
Finally, drivers operate in tight social networks. Policies should be developed with their input rather than imposed externally. Programmes that actively engage drivers will be more widely accepted and successful.
Rethinking how incentives shape behaviour
Speeding is often framed as a problem of reckless individuals making bad choices. My research shows that’s rarely the case – rather it’s about social incentives and peer influence.
A poorly designed financial incentive may slow drivers down temporarily, but it won’t change long-term behaviour. Incentives that help drivers escape the social pressure of adopting risky behaviours may shift norms – creating lasting improvements in road safety, economic efficiency and environmental impact.
Claude Raisaro receives funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 195266), the Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich (grant no. FK-22-020), the Swiss Re Foundation for Research in Development Economics, and SurveyCTO. He is affiliated with Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets at Stockholm School of Economics.
Now there are several politically conscious female voices rising in the rap scene. Gender studies scholar Jyhene Kebsi has published a research paper on how their lyrics highlight the multiple inequalities that women in Tunisia – and the world – must overcome.
How have male Tunisian rappers generally treated women in their songs and videos?
The gender politics of Tunisian men’s rap is complex, but we can talk about one of its tendencies. Although there are men who’ve supported their female colleagues and collaborated with them on songs, their portrayals tend to lump women into one of two groups: virtuous or promiscuous; madonnas or whores.
This is clear in their use of obscene words that aim to degrade the “fallen” women they rap about. Their sexual references can be seen as a way to debase the “easy girls and immoral women” who challenge patriarchal norms.
This is in sharp contrast to the love and indebtedness they express towards their mothers and sisters. In contrast to western rap, the mother figure is central in Tunisian rap.
The sacredness of the mother in Tunisian Muslim culture is seen in songs full of gratitude towards those who brought them into the world.
This strengthens men’s social dominance and their policing of women’s bodies. Having said that, it is very important to highlight that sexism is not limited to the Arab rap scene. As I explain in my paper, many western male rappers objectify, humiliate and degrade women in their songs too.
There’s a common perception that Medusa was Tunisia’s first female rapper. In reality, Sabrina began performing rap in 2007 and Tunisia’s other female artists joined the rap scene after the 2011 revolution.
Medusa is Tunisia’s most famous female rapper in the west – her migration to France boosted her international profile. Although Tuny Girl and Queen Nesrine have not gained the fame of Medusa or Sabrina, they’ve released powerful feminist songs that criticise the status quo in post-revolutionary Tunisia.
These artists have mainly relied on digital media to share their songs with the public through social platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Unfortunately, all four of them have facedoppositionbecause they’re women.
Rap is considered a masculine musical genre. Tunisian women’s initial entry into this male-dominated world was not easily accepted. Attitudes towards female rappers have evolved thanks to women’s gradual success in attracting a larger fan base.
But these four artists share a strong resistance to sexism. Most importantly, while being aware of patriarchal pressures, they’re conscious of the many different forms of oppression that intersect to keep women less equal than men.
This is evident in their songs, which reflect a strong awareness of intersectionality.
What is intersesectionality?
The black US feminist Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to describe the double discrimination of sexism and racism faced by black women. So, she used the term to discuss the multiple forms of inequality that compound themselves and create interlocking obstacles that shape black women’s experiences of discrimination.
Intersectionality highlights the experiences of multiple forms of discrimination when these categories of social identity interact with and shape one another.
We see an understanding of intersectionality in a song like Hold On, where Medusa raps about illiteracy, political struggle and motherhood:
I am watching the floating misery / Illiteracy has spread and made us go from one extreme to the other / Where is the freedom for which activists struggled? / I am the free Tunisian who exposed their chest to bullets /
I am the mother, the mother of the martyr who has not gotten his revenge.
Or, in her song Arahdli, Sabrina raps about a range of social ills:
Leave me alone / The police catch you and harm you / Don’t believe the corrupt state / Unemployment and poverty will not make you happy.
I found that what Medusa, Sabrina, Queen Nesrine and Tuny Girl have in common is their rejection of, as Crenshaw puts it, the “single-axis framework”. The one-sided narrative that reduces women’s problems solely to men and patriarchy.
Instead, these artists highlight the damaging impact – for women – of the intersection of gender inequality, political corruption, unjust laws, ineffective local policies, the collapse of Tunisia’s economy and the country’s weak position in the global geopolitical landscape.
Their songs are united in their recognition that Tunisian women’s lives are shaped by all these overlapping power structures, exposing them to marginalisation and discrimination.
So, their songs identify hidden, interrelated structural barriers to their freedom. Misogyny is just one element that needs to be considered alongside other local and global issues when we discuss gender politics in Tunisia.
What other new trends are female rappers ushering in?
Women are at the forefront of innovation in Tunisian rap. Take Lully Snake. She’s a Tunisian-Algerian rapper based in Tunisia. This 24-year-old artist was previously a breakdancer. Her passion for hip-hop culture and her love for US artists like Tupac, Kool G Rap, Queen Latifah and Foxy Brown led her to start rapping.
Like all Tunisian women rappers, she considers her entry into rap to have been a long and difficult journey. Starting in 2019, her first song was only released in 2024.
Lully Snake first uploaded her debut song Zabatna Kida on Instagram. Its uniqueness lies in its combination of rap and mahraganat, an Egyptian street music that emerged in Cairo’s ghettos. Its success encouraged her to carry on rapping in both Tunisian and Egyptian, alongside other western languages and Maghrebi dialects.
Lully Snake’s experimentation proves that female rappers are innovating while spreading messages that empower women. This has ultimately enriched Tunisian rap.
Jyhene Kebsi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
President Donald Trump unveiled a sweeping new tariff plan on April 2, 2025, to reshape U.S. trade and boost domestic industry.
Framing the announcement as “Liberation Day,” he proposed a 10% tariff on essentially all imports, with steeper rates for major trade partners, including 34% on Chinese goods and 20% on those from the European Union. Starting April 3, a 25% tariff on all foreign-made cars and auto parts will take effect – a move that he says will revive U.S. manufacturing and reset America’s trade agenda.
But the fanfare surrounding the announcement masks a much larger gamble. What’s really at stake is trust – America’s long-standing reputation as a stable and predictable destination for global investment. And once that trust is lost, it’s incredibly hard to win back.
The strategy is presented as a robust defense of American manufacturing and the middle class. But foreign direct investment – when overseas companies build factories or expand operations in the U.S. – depends on more than just opportunity. It depends on certainty.
If global investors start to worry that U.S. trade policy can shift abruptly, they may relocate their capital elsewhere. As such, the administration’s aggressive approach to tariffs risks undermining the very confidence that has long made the U.S. a top destination for global capital.
Auto tariffs as a case in point
Nowhere is this risk more visible than in the auto industry.
In 2023 alone, the United States attracted over US$148 billion in foreign direct investment, with nearly $42.9 billion tied to manufacturing, including in the automotive sector. Over the past few decades, major global automakers such as Toyota, BMW and Hyundai have established expansive plants in states including Alabama, Ohio and Kentucky.
These facilities – many of which have seen significant reinvestment and expansion in recent years, especially in response to the shift toward electric vehicles – employ thousands of Americans and contribute significantly to local economies.
Trump’s tariff push aims to get automakers to manufacture more vehicles on U.S. soil to overcome rising import costs. It’s a strategy with precedent. During his first term, the threat of auto tariffs, alongside existing plans, helped spur Toyota’s $1.6 billion investment in a North Carolina plant and Volkswagen’s expansion of its operations in Tennessee. It’s not far-fetched to imagine Honda or Mercedes following suit with new factories in Indiana or Texas.
But here’s the catch: “Made in the USA” doesn’t always mean “made for less.” American auto plants often face productivity and efficiency gaps compared with foreign competitors. Labor costs are higher. Assembly lines move more slowly, partly due to stricter labor protections, less automation and aging infrastructure. And U.S. automakers such as Ford and GM still depend heavily on global supply chains. Even for vehicles assembled in America, about 40% of the parts, such as engines from Canada and wiring harnesses from Mexico, are imported.
When those parts are taxed, production costs go up. Moody’s estimates that pickups such as the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado could cost $2,000 to $3,000 more as a result. Goldman Sachs projects price hikes of up to $15,000, depending on the vehicle. Automakers then face a dilemma: raise prices and risk losing customers or absorb the costs and cut into their margins.
A ripple effect across the economy
Tariffs may protect one industry, but their ripple effects reach much further. They raise costs for other sectors that rely on imported inputs, slow down production by making supply chains more expensive and less efficient, squeeze profit margins, and leave businesses and consumers with harder choices.
Factories represent billion-dollar investments that take years to recoup their costs. Mixed signals, such as the president calling tariffs “permanent” one moment and negotiable the next, create a climate of uncertainty. That makes companies more hesitant to build, hire and expand.
And investors are watching closely. If building in the U.S. becomes more expensive and less predictable, is it still a smart long-term bet? When a company is deciding where to build its next battery plant or chip facility, volatility in U.S. policy can be a deal breaker.
The consequences could surface soon. Goldman Sachs has already lowered its 2025 U.S. GDP growth forecast to 1.7%, down from an earlier 2.2%, citing the administration’s trade policy risks. Consumers, still grappling with inflation and high interest rates, may begin to delay big-ticket purchases, especially as tariffs push prices even higher.
The international fallout
America’s trading partners aren’t standing still. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his country “will fight back – with purpose and with force.” The European Union is exploring duties on American tech firms. Japan, a longtime ally, is signaling unease. If these countries redirect investment to other countries, the U.S. could lose its competitive edge for years to come.
And while roughly 1 million Americans work in the auto manufacturing industry, more than 150 million make up the total American labor force. When tariffs drive up input costs, it can trigger a chain reaction, hurting retailers, stalling service-sector jobs and slowing overall economic growth.
Consumers will feel it too. Higher prices mean lower sales, reduced tax revenues and shrinking profits. All of that weakens the economy at a time when household budgets are already strained.
Lessons from history
The U.S. has seen how trade policy can shape investment decisions – just in reverse. In the 1980s, Japanese automakers responded to U.S. import quotas not by withdrawing but by building plants in the United States. That response was possible because policies were clear and negotiated, not abrupt or adversarial.
Today, the story is different. Volatile, unilateral tariffs don’t build trust – they erode it. And when trust erodes, so does investment.
Yes, a factory in Indiana or Kentucky might reopen. Yet if that comes at the cost of deterring billions of dollars in long-term investment, is it worth it?
So while the president may celebrate April 2 as Liberation Day, markets may come to see it as the tipping point – when global confidence in the U.S. economy began to falter in earnest.
Bedassa Tadesse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Salvadorans participate in a procession on Nov. 14, 2015, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the murder of the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, five other Jesuit priests and two employees at Central American University in San Salvador.Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images
As a psychology professor and a former dean focused on equitable educational access, I believe U.S. higher education leaders in Trump’s crosshairs would do well to reflect on the courage of university leaders in El Salvador who, during the 1980s, opposed injustice despite facing grave personal risks for doing so.
The Central American context
El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s was at the center of Cold War politics. In the name of preventing the spread of communism, the country’s U.S.-backed oligarchy and military waged a repressive campaign against people who pushed for human rights.
Before and during the conflict, universities that took the side of the poor and marginalized experienced intense backlash, including the revocation of funding and attacks on the reputation of university leaders.
These actions feel eerily similar to those being taken against U.S. universities today.
The university president, Ignacio Ellacuría, was a Jesuit priest and a renowned theologian and philosopher. His second in command, Ignacio Martín-Baró, also a Jesuit priest, was a social psychologist. Martín-Baró developed the field of liberation psychology, which argues that oppression in society must be addressed to enable mental health and well-being.
These leaders advanced ideas to create a more just society.
They didn’t serve the elite by reproducing a wealthy and educated upper class that would support the status quo. Instead, Ellacuría called for universities to center the needs of poor community members in their teaching and social outreach.
Because of their efforts to promote justice, Ellacuría, Martín-Baró and six other people were assassinated on campus in 1989 by U.S.-trained military forces.
A mural pays homage to six Jesuit priests and two university employees murdered during El Salvador’s civil war. Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images
Elements of liberatory leadership
The Central American University leaders understood the power of their authority as scholars. But they didn’t use it to dominate others. They exercised their authority in service of the poor.
Martín-Baró created the Institute for Public Opinion to collect and disseminate survey data about citizens’ experiences. In a 1988 survey, respondents in the countryside reported high unemployment and the widespread sentiment that their condition had worsened over the past decade.
The university leaders and faculty did not distance themselves from the people.
Instead, they listened to their struggles and supported community groups such as the ecclesial base communities that organized to resist oppression.
A fundamental reason for the university’s involvement in the country’s struggles was its belief in the “preferential option for the poor.”
The theological concept upholds God’s love for all of humanity, which requires that God take sides. According to the theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, a contributor to the development of Latin American liberation theology, God does not remain neutral when people are oppressed, so neither should human leaders.
US higher education
These elements of liberatory leadership, I argue, can provide lessons for U.S. higher education leaders, even at U.S. secular institutions.
Rather than refrain from communicating with faculty and students, university leaders might acknowledge the fear and pain people are feeling in response to anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
University leaders might hold listening sessions to learn how executive orders are impacting faculty and students. In my experience as an executive coach, such listening sessions are uncommon due to fear of reprisal from politicians and other powerful stakeholders.
Rather than not discussing the impact of federal orders, they might conduct surveys to publicize the scope of the effects. Leaders could make public statements, rooting their arguments in the values espoused by their university mission statements.
To be sure, there are risks to this kind of leadership.
U.S. academic leaders may not face the same outcome as their counterparts in 1980s Central America, but they do risk their reputations and livelihoods for speaking out.
The Central American University leaders faced the same risks, yet they empowered people to continue to resist unjust actions. Among the ecclesial base communities, they remain an important example of leadership during troubled times.
Fear did not guide their actions. Freedom and truth did – values that are foundational to democracy.
Annmarie Caño is the founder and owner of Annmarie Caño Coaching & Consulting, LLC. In the past, she has received funding from the National Institutes of Health. She is a member of the American Psychological Association.
You’ve likely heard about vitamin D’s important role in maintaining strong bones and teeth. But it also plays several other important roles to keep your body healthy – including the function of your gut.
For this study, we recruited 213 children and adolescents from South Florida, primarily Hispanics, though some were Black. Before having them start taking the fiber supplement, we measured their vitamin D levels to ensure they had adequate amounts. Surprisingly, we found that 68% of these children had suboptimal vitamin D levels.
Considering South Florida is an area with plenty of sunshine year-round, this was both startling and concerning. While vitamin D can be obtained from foods, most people in the U.S. get this vitamin primarily from skin exposure to sunlight. For youth approaching or experiencing puberty – a period of profound physiological changes, including rapid changes in bone mass – vitamin D deficiency could lead to several health issues.
Vitamin D is involved in so many bodily functions because there are vitamin D receptors in different organs. These receptors act like docking stations for vitamin D to bind to and trigger different effects in the skin, intestine, bone, parathyroid gland, immune system and pancreas, among others.
Vitamin D regulates calcium levels in the body, which is key for not only building and maintaining bone mass but also the basic functioning of the nervous system.
The intestinal barrier is a layered wall that allows your gut to absorb nutrients and keep out harmful bacteria. This wall is composed of intestinal cells and proteins called tight junctions that act like bricks sealing these cells together. Tight junctions play an important role in maintaining the structure of your intestinal barrier.
Vitamin D receptors help your gut produce tight junctions to maintain your intestinal barrier. Research suggests that vitamin D deficiency reduces production of the receptors the nutrient binds to, subsequently reducing the seal of the intestinal wall. This weakening of the gut barrier may allow substances from the intestine to pass into the blood, causing inflammation. Disruption of the intestinal barrier is linked to many diseases, including liver disease, Type 1 diabetes, obesity and gastrointestinal conditions such as celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer.
After discovering that so many of the participants in our MetA-Bone Trial had suboptimal vitamin D levels, we became interested in understanding how this nutrient might be affecting their gut health. For this, we also measured the strength of their intestinal barrier and associated this to their vitamin D levels in blood.
We found that children with suboptimal vitamin D levels had a higher risk of damaging their intestinal barrier compared with children with optimal vitamin D levels. This finding suggests that even in healthy children, suboptimal levels of vitamin D may compromise the gut and potentially increase the risk of developing chronic diseases at an early age.
Getting enough vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in the U.S. and around the world. Roughly 15.4% of children and adolescents in the U.S. were vitamin D deficient in 2017. While vitamin D deficiency has slightly decreased over time in the general U.S. population, it remains high among teens, especially children with darker skin.
How can you ensure you are getting enough of this important nutrient?
Only a few foods naturally contain vitamin D. For example, vitamin D is naturally found in fatty fish – such as trout, salmon, cod and tuna – egg yolks and mushrooms. Vitamin D can also be found in many fortified foods, such as dairy products like milk and cheese, plant-based milks, breakfast cereals, some orange juice brands and infant formulas. Dietary supplements are also good sources of vitamin D.
For most people in the U.S., Sun exposure is their main source of vitamin D. However, how much Sun exposure you need depends on several factors, such as the melanin content of your skin. Melanin is a pigment that protects your skin from ultraviolet radiation. People with more melanin – and therefore darker skin – produce less vitamin D from Sun exposure than those with less melanin and may thus require longer Sun exposure to meet minimum requirements.
Since excessive ultraviolet radiation is associated with skin cancer, clinicians typically recommend you meet your vitamin D requirements through foods and beverages. For healthy children and adults, the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D is 600 IU, with an age-based upper limit of no more than 1,000 to 4,000 IU. You can usually meet this through a healthy diet that includes a variety of whole and unprocessed foods.
Researchers continue to uncover the extensive benefits of vitamin D in the body, supporting its indispensable role in nutrition and health. For growing children and adolescents, enough vitamin D is important for healthy development.
Jacqueline Hernandez receives funding from National Institute of Health and National Dairy Council
Cristina Palacios receives funding from the National Institute of Health, the World Health Organization, and the National Dairy Council
As health care premiums continue to rise nationwide, many employers have formed so-called purchasing alliances in hopes of collectively reducing health care costs for their employees. Despite their popularity, to date there has been limited evidence to show these alliances work to control costs.
Our findings provide the first clear evidence that purchasing alliances like Peak can successfully reduce health care costs.
Why it matters
Peak Health Alliance was started in response to a Kaiser Health News report that found Summit County, which includes the ski destinations of Breckenridge and Keystone, was one of the most expensive counties in the country for health care. In collaboration with an insurance partner, Peak aimed to negotiate lower prices with hospitals in their networks and offer insurance plans on the individual market.
One key advantage of Peak was its relatively small and clearly defined geographic area – a single county with a population of roughly 30,000 people. This simplified management and likely increased Peak’s bargaining power, as it allowed Peak to capture a large share of the population using a local insurer. Larger-scale initiatives, in contrast, often face greater administrative complexity as they manage more partners and geographies, potentially lowering their ability to negotiate effectively.
We used data from the Colorado Division of Insurance on health plans to compare changes in premiums from 2017 to 2021 between counties where Peak expanded to and counties where it did not.
In 2024, the national average annual premiums for a private insurance health plan is close to $9,000 per year for single coverage. Peak’s savings of 13% to 17% translate to over $1,000 of savings per year per person enrolled in Peak’s plans.
Premiums also dropped in the seven counties added during Peak’s 2021 expansion. Those counties were Dolores, Grand, Lake, La Plata, Montezuma, Park and San Juan.
Our research strongly suggests that these premium reductions resulted primarily from lower health care prices. In other words, the costs insurers paid to health care providers for their services went down. When total costs are lowered, premiums for people enrolled in the plan also dropped.
What still isn’t known
It remains uncertain whether Peak Health Alliance can maintain its initial success following significant challenges with its insurance partners.
It’s not clear if similar alliances can replicate Peak’s success in different market conditions and geographic regions.
Additionally, researchers need to examine the long-term effects of purchasing alliances on health care quality and consumer satisfaction, ensuring that cost savings do not compromise patient outcomes.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Mark Meiselbach receives funding from Arnold Ventures. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Arnold Ventures
Matthew Eisenberg received funding for this work from Arnold Ventures. Matthew Eisenberg recieved funding outside of this work from the Commonwealth Fund, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute on Nursing Research. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors.
The Trump administration laid off thousands more employees at the CDC on April 1, 2025, as part of its workforce reduction.Anadolu/Getty Images
The job of director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention carries immense responsibility for shaping health policies, responding to crises and maintaining trust in public health institutions.
As a teaching professor and public health educator, I appreciate the importance of evidence-based public health practice and the CDC director’s role in advancing public health science, disease surveillance and response and a host of other functions that are essential to public health.
But in March, Trump withdrew Weldon’s nomination less than an hour before his confirmation hearing was set to begin, after several Republicans in Congress relayed that they would not support his appointment.
The CDC relies on its director to provide scientific leadership, shape policy responses and guide the agency’s extensive workforce in addressing emerging health threats.
Prior to January, the CDC director was appointed directly by the president. The position did not require Senate confirmation, unlike the other HHS director positions. The selection was primarily an executive decision, although it was often influenced by political, public health and scientific considerations. But as of Jan. 20, changes approved in the 2022 omnibus budget require Senate confirmation for incoming CDC directors.
In the past, the appointed individual was typically a highly respected figure in public health, epidemiology or infectious disease, with experience leading large organizations, shaping policy and responding to public health emergencies. Public health policy experts expect that requiring Senate confirmation will enhance the esteem associated with the position and lend weight to the person who ultimately steps into the role. Yet, some have expressed concern that the position could become increasingly politicized.
Prior to stepping into this role, she had been serving as deputy director for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, since January 2023, a newer initiative established in 2022 through a US$1 billion appropriation from Congress to advance biomedical research.
Monarez has not yet laid out her plans, but she will no doubt have a challenging role, balancing the interests of public health with political pressures.
Reactions to her nomination
Reactions to Monarez’s nomination among health professionals have been mostly positive. For instance, Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, remarked that he appreciates that she is an active researcher who respects science.
While some have commented on the fact that she is the first nonphysician to head the agency in decades, that may actually be an advantage. The CDC’s primary functions are in scientific research and applying that research to improve public health. Doctoral scientists receive significantly more training in conducting research than medical doctors, whose training rightly prioritizes clinical practice, with many medical schools providing no training in research at all. Monarez’s qualifications are well-aligned with the requirements of the director role.
Now, in 2025, the U.S. is again at a time of change, with the advent of powerful technologies that will affect public health in still unforeseeable ways. New and emerging infectious diseases, like measles, COVID-19 and Ebola, are sparking outbreaks that can spread quickly in population-dense cities.
All these factors pose real threats to health in the U.S. and globally.
The next CDC director will undoubtedly play a key role in how these changes play out, both at home and abroad.
This story is part of a series of profiles of Cabinet and high-level administration positions.
Jordan Miller 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.
I am a law professor at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, and my research focuses on the work of the administrative agencies that compose the federal government.
I believe that understanding the federal government’s presence in the Philly metro area can highlight some of the potential consequences in our region for the rapid changes currently underway.
Here are some examples of the broad variety of services that federal employees in the Philadelphia region provide to the public.
Services to businesses
Several federal agencies in the Philadelphia area provide expertise, advice and resources for businesses.
For example, the U.S. Commercial Service, part of the Commerce Department, has an office in Philadelphia and assists U.S. businesses with exporting their products for international markets.
The Small Business Administration, which has a district office in King of Prussia, provides resources and support for small businesses.
And the Economic Development Administration operates a regional office in Philadelphia that distributes federal funds for construction, workforce training, manufacturing, disaster relief and other purposes.
Benefits for retirees and veterans
Other federal agencies administer government benefits programs. The Social Security Administration disburses benefits for retirees and the disabled, providing more than US$13 billion in benefits to almost 8 million people in the Philadelphia region each month.
About 3,800 Pennsylvanians work for the Social Security Administration in offices located around the state.
The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Medical Center in West Philadelphia. The center provides primary and specialty health care for veterans.
Statewide in Pennsylvania, about 17,000 federal employees work for the Veterans Health Administration. Another 1,500 work for the Veterans Benefits Administration, which provides veterans with education and training, home loans, life insurance and pensions.
Census data collection
The Census Bureau operates an office in Philadelphia to collect and disseminate data in a region that stretches from Tennessee to Pennsylvania.
The Census Bureau conducts the constitutionally mandated census of the U.S. population every 10 years, as well as an economic census of businesses every five years, and numerous surveys about communities, health, housing, crime, education and more.
In addition, regional census employees answer questions from local media, work with local organizations to encourage participation in censuses and surveys, and educate the public about census data. This work is of particular importance because census data determines how federal funding is allocated.
Military logistics
The Defense Logistics Agency’s Troop Support Command is headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia. Troop Support is responsible for creating and maintaining military supply chains. This includes securing food, clothing, equipment and medical supplies.
In addition to its role in supporting the military, the Corps of Engineers also constructs and maintains civil works projects. Its first civil works project in the Philadelphia region was the construction of a breakwater near Cape Henlopen, Delaware, in 1829.
The Environmental Protection Agency is perhaps best known as an environmental regulator, enforcing limits on air and water pollution and toxic substances. But it also is active in other areas, such as cleaning up contaminated sites in the Philadelphia area through the Superfund program.
EPA’s National Priorities List includes almost 40 contaminated sites in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. For example, EPA manages the cleanup of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia, where part of the Navy Yard had historically been used to dispose of waste from ships. EPA’s cleanup has remediated the onsite landfill and prevents contamination from seeping into the Delaware River.
EPA also supervises the cleanup in Havertown of the site of a former wood treatment operation that contaminated the soil and groundwater with the highly toxic chemical pentachlorophenol, or PCP. Because of the cleanup, part of the contaminated site is now a widely used YMCA that serves the recreational and fitness needs of the community.
Tax help
The Internal Revenue Service, another agency known for its enforcement activities, also provides services in the Philadelphia area to support taxpayers. These include, for example, taxpayer assistance centers in Horsham, King of Prussia, Media and Philadelphia.
Todd Aagaard is a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future in addition to his faculty position at Villanova University. From 1999 to 2007, he served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Five years since COVID emerged, not only has the pandemic affected the way we live and work, it’s also influencing the way researchers are thinking about the past.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, archaeologist Alex Bentley explains how the pandemic has sparked new research into how disease may have affected ancient civilisations, and the clues this offers about a change in the way humans designed their villages and cities 8,000 years ago.
As an anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Tennessee, Alex Bentley usually spend his time studying neolithic farming villages. But in the early days of the pandemic, he decided to team up with an epidemiologist on a research project to model the feedback loops between social behaviour, such as wearing a mask or not and the spread of disease. He says:
In doing that project, we learned so much about the spread of disease and its interaction with different behaviours. It was a perfect setup for looking at the same kind of question in the distant past when diseases were evolving for the first time in dense settlements.
Bentley was particularly interested in whether it could shed light on a conundrum: a curious pattern from the archaeological record that showed that early European farmers lived in large dense villages, then dispersed for centuries, then later formed cities again, which they also abandoned.
All this was happening in the neolithic period, between around 9000BC and 3000BC, a time when humans shifted from a nomadic hunterer-gatherer lifestyle to settling in small tribes in one place, cultivating the land and domesticating animals.
Bentley decided to apply the same model of how disease and patterns of behaviour spread during COVID, to map out how a contagious disease could have spread in an mega settlement called Nebelivka in modern-day Ukraine. This settlement was designed in an oval layout and divided into neighbourhoods, or clusters. Bentley and his colleagues suggest this layout, whether the inhabitants knew it or not, could have helped prevent the spread of disease.
Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to hear the interview with Alex Bentley.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood and hosted by Gemma Ware. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.
R. Alexander Bentley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
And yet, new pipelines, oil drilling projects and fracked gas wells are still being built. At a time when fossil fuel production should be decreasing, fossil fuel production is projected to expand — globally and in Canada.
Half were chosen at random to spend two to three minutes imagining and writing about a world in which humans have a sustainable relationship with the rest of the natural world. The other half were asked to write about their morning routine. We then asked participants whether they supported or opposed the development of two major and controversial fossil fuel infrastructure projects.
The Willow Project is a proposed oil drilling project in Alaska that was approved by former U.S. president Joe Biden’s administration in 2023, shortly after we collected our data. The Mountain Valley Pipeline carries methane gas for 300 miles through West Virginia and Virginia. At the time of our study, it was still under construction and facing legal challenges, but went into operation last year.
The participants who were asked to imagine a sustainable world expressed more opposition to the two fossil fuel projects than did participants who were not asked to imagine a sustainable world.
For example, among participants who did not imagine a sustainable world, 44 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed that the Willow Project should be completed. That opposition increased to 53 per cent for participants who imagined a sustainable world. Participants who imagined a sustainable world were also more likely to support the U.S. signing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty — a campaign to get governments around the world to commit to ending the development of new fossil fuel projects.
Imagining alternatives
When we looked at what participants wrote when describing a sustainable world, they frequently mentioned a transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Participants generally described a sustainable world in positive terms, including a cleaner and healthier environment free from pollution, with more intact natural habitats and green spaces, and more harmonious and equitable relationships between humans.
When focused on this alternative world, our participants brought their attitudes and intentions more in line with the desirable world they imagined and became more opposed to new fossil fuel projects.
We found that people who agreed with statements like “I can easily imagine a world in which we supply all of our energy needs without harming the natural world” and “It is easy to imagine a world where we no longer use fossil fuels” were more likely to express a willingness to engage in behaviours that support climate change mitigation, like participating in an environmental protest or getting involved with an environmental group.
Similar results have been found in research on utopian thinking: when people thought about a green utopia, they reported greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental actions, such as signing pro-environmental petitions and giving money to environmental groups.
The implication for those who want to promote pro-environmental social change — including putting an end to new fossil fuel projects — is to provide people with clear and detailed descriptions of how a sustainable world would function and what it would be like to live in that world.
With a clear picture of what a sustainable world would be like, and knowing what to work toward, people will be more likely to work for change.
Michael T. Schmitt receives funding from the Social Sciences and Human Research Council.
Annika E. Lutz receives funding from the Social Sciences and Human Research Council.
Tattoos of crowns and roses are popular among everyone – not just members of Tren de Aragua, as law enforcement has claimed. Marc Atkins/Getty Images
The United States deported 238 Venezuelan men on three flights to El Salvador on March 15, 2025, claiming that they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang that originated in Venezuela.
A lawyer for Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who is among the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador, says the government detained and deported her client because he has a tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown on top, which resembles the logo of his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid. The tattoo and a photograph of Barrios making a hand sign that means “I love you” in sign language are the only two pieces of evidence the government has presented of his gang ties, according to the lawyer.
Meanwhile, deported Venezuelan makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero has a tattoo of a crown on each wrist, one with “Dad” and one with “Mom” written next to each crown. Immigration authorities indicated in his file that these tattoos were “determining factors to conclude reasonable suspicion” of his membership in the Tren de Aragua gang. Some government sources list crowns as a tattoo common for Tren de Aragua members, but other government sources cast doubt on that claim.
The tattoos on the wrists of Andry José Hernández Romero, who says he was wrongly identified as a gang member by the Trump administration. David Alandete/X
Whether or not the Trump administration used tattoos as a sole criteria for deportation, I’ve found in my own research that simply using tattoos as any sort of criteria can lead law enforcement astray.
In 2023, I analyzed the reliability of tattoos as markers of gang membership in the Washington Law Review.
The bottom line: While many people in gangs have tattoos that demonstrate their membership, many people who have absolutely no gang ties also get similar tattoos.
There are some types of tattoos that can be especially misleading.
Geographic origins
In 2017, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Daniel Ramirez Medina, who was lawfully in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The government attempted to strip his status and deport him, claiming he was a gang member due to a tattoo that read “La Paz BCS.” La Paz is the capital of the Mexican state Baja California Sur, which is abbreviated “BCS.” The only evidence of gang membership that ICE agents presented in immigration court was this tattoo.
But they overlooked the fact that tattoos depicting the names or area codes of hometowns or countries of origin are a common way for people to honor where they came from.
This is particularly the case for people who migrate or move away from their homelands. For example, tattoos of “503” and “504” – the country codes used to dial El Salvador and Honduras, respectively – have been relied upon to allege gang membership, even as many people who have these tattoos deny any gang ties and have no criminal records. Law enforcement has also relied on tattoos of the words “Mexican,” “Chicano” or “Brown Pride” as evidence of gang membership.
Some gangs, such as the Mexican Mafia, include a reference to nationality in the name of the gang. And in the U.S., street gangs are often based in specific neighborhoods, with many gangs incorporating the city or street where they’re based into gang names and associated tattoos. For this reason, tattoos celebrating a city or country can only lead to confusion.
Tattoos of Mayan or Aztec images have also been used to designate people as gang members, even though these tattoos are clear expressions of cultural identity and do not necessarily have any nexus to gang membership. While some gangs do use specific Aztec symbols to identify members, it’s virtually impossible to distinguish a tattoo of cultural or geographic significance from a tattoo indicating gang association.
In the case of Medina, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered that his DACA status remain in place and that he be protected from deportation because ICE’s “conclusory findings” that he was a gang member were “contradicted by experts and other evidence.” Furthermore, an immigration judge who reviewed all the evidence had already concluded that he was not in a gang.
Martinez was clearly disturbed by ICE’s claims, writing, “Most troubling to the Court is the continued assertion that Mr. Ramirez is gang-affiliated, despite providing no evidence specific to Mr. Ramirez to the Immigration Court in connection with his administrative proceedings, and offering no evidence to this Court to support its assertions four months later.”
Religious imagery and pop culture
Tattoos of popular Catholic religious images, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, praying hands and rosaries, have also been used to label people as gang members, a move that would seem to be clearly overbroad.
While some gang members may be Catholic, no one would even try to allege that all Catholics are gang members. At least one of the deported Venezuelan men had a tattoo of a rosary, along with tattoos of a clock and the names of his mother and niece with crowns atop the text.
Tattoos have also become an important way for people to celebrate popular culture. Tattoos of a woman’s lips, for example, have become popular among gang members and non-gang members alike. A number of professional athletes, including soccer phenom Lionel Messi, have tattoos of their partner’s lips. However, this is also a tattoo law enforcement uses to categorize people as gang members.
The issue, of course, is that these symbols are also popular among people with no connection to the gang.
Imprecise methodology
Understanding the problem really comes down to math. While it may be true that many gang members have tattoos of the images listed above, it is also true that many non-gang members have similar tattoos.
The Bayesian mathematical approach involves making inferences about probabilities based on available information. The probability that a gang member has a certain tattoo isn’t the same as the probability that an individual who has a certain tattoo is a gang member.
The U.S. government seems to be wrongfully equating the two.
Writing about the broader problems of discerning gang membership in 2009, sociologist David Kennedy argued that the law’s inability to devise rules “that clearly distinguish a gang and a football team, or a gang member and his mother” suggests that taking “legal action, based on imprecise language [is] something of a problem.”
This problem becomes magnified when there’s no due process for the accused – which is exactly what happened to the Venezuelan men whisked off to El Salvador.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Grace McCormack, Research scientist of Health Policy and Economics, University of Southern California
Since the mid-2000s, the Medicare system has dramatically transformed. Enrollment in Medicare Advantage – the private alternative to the traditional Medicare program administered by the government – has more than quadrupled. It now accounts for the majority of Medicare enrollment.
Employers, including state government agencies, are helping drive this growth in Medicare Advantage sign-ups. The increase in people on Medicare Advantage plans burdens taxpayers and means more patients can be denied doctor-ordered care.
At the same time, many private and state employers have shifted their retirement plans so that the health benefit employees have earned counts only toward Medicare Advantage plans that replace traditional Medicare.
We are health carepolicy experts who study Medicare, including what’s driving the changes in employer health care subsidies and why health care choices may be difficult for many people.
Vanishing choices
As of early 2025, health care subsidies for retired state employees in 13 states don’t include traditional Medicare supplement plans. The subsidies apply only to Medicare Advantage plans.
In the private sector, just over half of large employers that offer Medicare Advantage have used it to replace traditional Medicare instead of offering their employees a choice.
When private and state employers drop the option for the Medigap insurance that supplements rather than replaces traditional Medicare, retirees must choose a fully privatized Medicare Advantage plan or pay the full cost of a supplemental Medigap plan on their own. Medigap lowers or removes traditional Medicare’s co-pays and deductibles.
Today, a person signing up for Medicare also has, on average, more than 30 Medicare Advantage plan options – privately run alternatives to traditional Medicare and Medigap. The two largest providers, UnitedHealthcare and Humana, administered nearly half of all Medicare Advantage plans in 2024.
Navigating the current Medicare system can be overwhelming, and the Medicare Advantage option is expensive for taxpayers. As policymakers continue to weigh potential reforms, it’s important to understand why Medicare Advantage has become so popular, who is enrolling in Medicare Advantage, and what aspects of Medicare Advantage plans may be important to them.
Switching into Medicare Advantage
The bulk of Medicare Advantage’s rapid growth has come from people switching from traditional Medicare into Medicare Advantage: In 2021 alone, over 7% of Americans covered by traditional Medicare switched to Medicare Advantage, but only 1.2% of those with Medicare Advantage coverage switched to traditional Medicare.
But for Medicare, the privatization trend is not so simple.
Compared with traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans are, on average, paid more by the taxpayer-funded Medicare system for covering each enrollee. Advantage plans also have more flexibility to limit their medical costs by restricting provider networks and requiring prior authorization.
The extra benefits of Medicare Advantage
Some of these extra funds result in higher profits for insurers, but they also partially finance benefits that are not part of regular Medicare.
In the past decade, lawmakers have introducedseveral bills to add this coverage, but Congress has not passed any of them.
Medicare beneficiaries give many reasons for choosing their health plan. The most common reasons are different for people covered by traditional Medicare versus Medicare Advantage. Of people who have traditional Medicare coverage, 40% prefer to have more doctors and hospitals to choose from. A similar percentage of those with Medicare Advantage cite extra benefits or limits on out-of-pocket costs.
Economic insecurity and advertising
These financial protections and extra benefits are important for some older adults, given high rates of poverty and economic insecurity among people who are 65 or older. Though these supplemental benefits may not be very accessible, a quarter of surveyed beneficiaries said they were a primary reason for enrolling in Medicare Advantage. An additional fifth cited lower out-of-pocket costs.
Medicare Advantage plans also typically include a low-cost drug plan that people who opt for traditional Medicare pay for separately as Part D.
Compared with a traditional Medicare plan that doesn’t include a supplemental Medigap plan to limit premiums and co-pays, Medicare Advantage’s premiums and co-pays contribute to an estimated 18% to 24% lower out-of-pocket spending.
Brokers, agents and advertisements also play an important role in which plans people choose. In a survey of people who have Medicare coverage, one-third said they used an agent or broker to choose a plan. Of those living below the federal poverty line, 12% said they relied on advertising.
While these sources can inform beneficiaries about the many options, many policymakers have raised concerns aboutmisleading marketing steering people into plans that don’t serve their needs. Brokers and agents may have more incentive to guide patients to Medicare Advantage because they are paid more for enrolling people in fully privatized plans than in the Medigap and Part D plans that supplement traditional Medicare.
Retirement benefits shifted to Medicare Advantage
Changes in retirement benefits are also contributing to the growth in Medicare Advantage.
A majority of state employee health care retirement benefits include Medicare Advantage plans. And in 13 states, the health care benefit for retired state employees does not include a choice of Medigap: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
In the private sector, the share of employers offering retirement health care benefits to their employees has declined since the 1990s: Only 21% of large employers offer those benefits today compared with 66% in 1988. But among private employers that still offer retirement health care benefits, those offering Medicare Advantage more than doubled between 2017 and 2024, from 26% to 56%.
Just over half of large employers that offer Medicare Advantage have used it to replace regular Medicare instead of offering their employees a choice. This means that to remain in traditional Medicare, retirees would have to give up an employer subsidy that covers all or part of the Medicare Advantage premium and pay the full Medigap premium.
Employers cite the shift as a necessary response to rising health care costs, though many retirees have protested the trend. Medicare Advantage premiums are generally cheaper than Medigap premiums, saving employers money, in exchange for retirees potentially being denied care more often. New York City employees successfully prevented the switch.
Stuck in Medicare Advantage
For many Medicare beneficiaries, switching to Medicare Advantage is a one-way street because most states don’t offer switchers the guaranteed issue and community rating protections for Medigap supplemental coverage plans that people get when initially signing up for Medicare. These protections prevent people from being denied coverage or charged a higher price for preexisting conditions.
This increased cost in most states of switching back to regular Medicare after age 66½ – especially for people with serious health conditions – may reduce the number of people who do so. But some switch despite the cost.
Meanwhile, 5% of people who used Medicare Advantage plans in 2024 had to find a new one in 2025 because of a plan being discontinued. There is a silver lining, however: For the first 63 days after their coverage ends, people in failed plans can choose traditional Medicare plus a Medigap supplement with the guaranteed issue protection that in most states applies only during the first year of Medicare eligibility.
Thirteen states and more than half of employers who offer a retiree health benefit have narrowed their benefit subsidy and only offer Medicare Advantage. This replaces traditional Medicare with a privately administered plan, removing the choice of Medigap, a supplement to traditional Medicare. SDI Productions/E+ via Getty images
While the share of Americans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans has grown nationwide, the program’s popularity still varies geographically. Today, the share of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage ranges from 2% in Alaska to 63% in Alabama, Connecticut and Michigan.
Although an increasing share of people in rural regions have enrolled in Medicare Advantage, they are still less likely to enroll in Medicare Advantage and more likely to return from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare than their urban counterparts.
Switching from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage is more common among relatively healthy people who use less health care than expected. This trend, known as “favorable selection,” means the Medicare Advantage companies are enrolling healthier people. The Medicare system pays Medicare Advantage plans based on the expected rather than actual medical costs. This contributes to the overpayment of Medicare Advantage plans.
These switching patterns suggest that among people who have illnesses such as diabetes, Medicare Advantage is potentially more appealing if they already face barriers to health care access or are in better health. These barriers are particularly common among racial and ethnic minorities in both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
In some ways, this resembles the tiered or “topped-up” health care system advocated for by some economists, where people receive a baseline plan, and those who want more coverage and can afford it pay for a more generous “topped-up” plan. Given the size and differing needs of the Medicare population, such a system can potentially be a cost-effective way to ensure health care access and financial protections.
But it also creates inequalities in access, especially if the baseline plan is much worse than the “topped-up” plan.
In addition, taxpayers pay more rather than less for someone enrolled in Medicare Advantage – the less expensive baseline plan that provides less health care. They pay less for someone enrolled in traditional Medicare plus additional supplemental insurance plans – the “topped-up” option.
We believe it’s important that, throughout any reform, people have access to an affordable plan that ensures access to health care. Projections show that under the current payment system, reductions in payments from the Medicare system to Medicare Advantage providers would likely lead to only modest decreases in plan generosity, though given the vulnerability of many who use Medicare Advantage, this would have to be monitored carefully.
It’s also important for policymakers to consider improving traditional Medicare, whether that be allowing for an out-of-pocket maximum or covering at least the same degree of dental, vision or other benefits currently offered only under Medicare Advantage.
This article is part of an occasional series examining the U.S. Medicare system.
The US administration claims these tariffs on imports will reduce the US trade deficit and address what it views as unfair and non-reciprocal trade practices. Trump said this would
forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.
The “reciprocal” tariffs are designed to impose charges on other countries equivalent to half the costs they supposedly inflict on US exporters through tariffs, currency manipulation and non-tariff barriers levied on US goods.
Each nation received a tariff number that will apply to most goods. Notable sectors exempt include steel, aluminium and motor vehicles, which are already subject to new tariffs.
The minimum baseline tariff for each country is 10 percent. But many countries received higher numbers, including Vietnam (46 percent), Thailand (36 percent), China (34 percent), Indonesia (32 percent), Taiwan (32 percent) and Switzerland (31 percent).
The tariff number for China is in addition to an existing 20 percent tariff, so the total tariff applied to Chinese imports is 54 percent. Countries assigned 10 percent tariffs include Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Canada and Mexico are exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, for now, but goods from those nations are subject to a 25 percent tariff under a separate executive order.
Although some countries do charge higher tariffs on US goods than the US imposes on their exports, and the “Liberation Day” tariffs are allegedly only half the full reciprocal rate, the calculations behind them are open to challenge.
For example, non-tariff measures are notoriously difficult to estimate and “subject to much uncertainty”, according to one recent study.
GDP impacts with retaliation Other countries are now likely to respond with retaliatory tariffs on US imports. Canada (the largest destination for US exports), the EU and China have all said they will respond in kind.
To estimate the impacts of this tit-for-tat trade standoff, I use a global model of the production, trade and consumption of goods and services. Similar simulation tools — known as “computable general equilibrium models” — are widely used by governments, academics and consultancies to evaluate policy changes.
The first model simulates a scenario in which the US imposes reciprocal and other new tariffs, and other countries respond with equivalent tariffs on US goods. Estimated changes in GDP due to US reciprocal tariffs and retaliatory tariffs by other nations are shown in the table below.
The tariffs decrease US GDP by US$438.4 billion (1.45 percent). Divided among the nation’s 126 million households, GDP per household decreases by $3,487 per year. That is larger than the corresponding decreases in any other country. (All figures are in US dollars.)
Proportional GDP decreases are largest in Mexico (2.24 percent) and Canada (1.65 percent) as these nations ship more than 75 percent of their exports to the US. Mexican households are worse off by $1,192 per year and Canadian households by $2,467.
Other nations that experience relatively large decreases in GDP include Vietnam (0.99 percent) and Switzerland (0.32 percent).
Some nations gain from the trade war. Typically, these face relatively low US tariffs (and consequently also impose relatively low tariffs on US goods). New Zealand (0.29 percent) and Brazil (0.28 percent) experience the largest increases in GDP. New Zealand households are better off by $397 per year.
Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world (all nations except the US) decreases by $62 billion.
At the global level, GDP decreases by $500 billion (0.43 percent). This result confirms the well-known rule that trade wars shrink the global economy.
GDP impacts without retaliation In the second scenario, the modelling depicts what happens if other nations do not react to the US tariffs. The changes in the GDP of selected countries are presented in the table below.
Countries that face relatively high US tariffs and ship a large proportion of their exports to the US experience the largest proportional decreases in GDP. These include Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Switzerland, South Korea and China.
Countries that face relatively low new tariffs gain, with the UK experiencing the largest GDP increase.
The tariffs decrease US GDP by $149 billion (0.49 percent) because the tariffs increase production costs and consumer prices in the US.
Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world decreases by $155 billion, more than twice the corresponding decrease when there was retaliation. This indicates that the rest of the world can reduce losses by retaliating. At the same time, retaliation leads to a worse outcome for the US.
Previous tariff announcements by the Trump administration dropped sand into the cogs of international trade. The reciprocal tariffs throw a spanner into the works. Ultimately, the US may face the largest damages.
Although New Zealand and Australia seem to have escaped the worst of Donald Trump’s latest tariffs, some Pacific Islands stand to be hit hard — including a few that aren’t even “countries”.
The US will impose a base tariff of 10 percent on all foreign imports, with rates between 20 and 50 percent for countries judged to have major tariffs on US goods.
Nauru, one of the smallest nations in the world, has been slapped with a 30 percent tariff, the US claimed they are imposing a 59 percent tariff.
Vanuatu will be given a 22 percent tariff.
Norfolk Island, which is an Australian territory, has been given a 29 percent tariff, this is despite Australia getting only 10 percent.
Most other Pacific nations were given the 10 percent base tariff.
This included Tokelau, despite it being a non-self-governing territory of New Zealand, with a population of only about 1500 people living on the atoll islands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A stoush between the Chief Human Rights Commissioner and a Jewish community leader has flared up following a showdown at Parliament.
Appearing before a parliamentary select committee today, Dr Stephen Rainbow was asked about his recent apology for incorrect comments he made about Muslims earlier this year.
“If my language has been injudicious . . . then I have apologised for that,” he told MPs.
“I’ve apologised publicly. I’ve apologised privately. I’ve met with FIANZ [The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand] to hear their concerns and to apologise to them, both in person and publicly, and I hold to that apology.”
The apology relates to a meeting he had with Jewish community leader Philippa Yasbek, from the anti-Zionist Jewish groups Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu, in February.
Yasbek said Rainbow claimed during the meeting that the Security Intelligence Services (SIS) threat assessment found Muslims posed a greater threat to the Jewish community in New Zealand than white supremacists.
In fact, the report states “white identity-motivated violent extremism [W-IMVE] remains the dominant identity-motivated violent extremism ideology in New Zealand”.
Rainbow changed his position Rainbow told the committee he had since changed his position after receiving new information.
He said was disappointed he had “allowed [his] words to create a perception there was a prejudice there” and he would do everything in his power to repair his relationship with the Muslim community.
“Please be assured that I take this as a learning, and I will be far more measured with my comments in future.”
But Rainbow disputed another of Yasbek’s assertions that he had also raised the supposed antisemitism of Afghan refugees in West Auckland.
“It’s going to be really unhelpful if I get into a he-said-she-said, but I did not say the comments that were attributed to me about that. I do not believe that,” Rainbow said.
“I emphatically deny that I said that.”
‘It definitely stuck in my mind’ – Jewish community leader Yasbek, who called for Rainbow’s resignation yesterday, was watching the select committee hearing from the back of the room.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Yasbek said she was certain Rainbow had made the comments about Afghan refugees.
“It was particularly memorable because it was so specific and he said that he was concerned about the risk of anti-semitism in the community of Afghan refugees in West Auckland.
“It’s very specific. It’s not a sort of detail that one is likely to make up, and it definitely stuck in my mind.”
Yasbek said the race relations commissioner and two Human Rights Commission staff members were also in the room and should be interviewed to corroborate what happened.
“There were multiple witnesses. I am concerned that he has impugned my integrity in that way which is why there should be an independent investigation of this matter.”
Alternative Jewish Voices’ Philippa Yasbek . . . “there should be an independent investigation of this matter.” Image: RNZ
Raised reported comments Speaking to RNZ later, FIANZ chairman Abdur Razzaq said he raised the commissioner’s reported comments about Afghan refugees when he met with Rainbow several weeks ago.
“I raised it at the meeting with him and he did not correct me. At my meeting there were other members of the Human Rights Commission. He did not say he didn’t [say that].”
Razzaq said it was up to the justice minister as to whether or not Rainbow was fit for the role.
“When you hear statements like this, like ‘greatest threat’, he has forgotten it was precisely this kind of Islamophobic sentiment which gave rise to the terrorist of March 15, rise to the right-wing extremist terrorists to take action and they justify it with these kinds of statements.”
“[The commissioner] calls himself an academic, a student of history. Where is his lessons learned on this aspect? To pick a Muslim community by name… he has to really genuinely look at himself as to what he is doing and what he is saying.”
Minister backs Rainbow: ‘Doing his best’ Speaking at Parliament following the hearing, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said he backed Rainbow and believed the commissioner would learn from the experience.
“The new commissioner is doing his best. By his own admission he didn’t express himself well. He has apologised and he will be learning from that experience, and it is my expectation that he will be very careful in the way that he communicates in the future.”
Goldsmith said he stood by his appointment of Rainbow, despite the independent panel tasked with leading the process taking a different view.
“There’s a range of opinions on that. The advice that I had originally from the group was a real focus on legal skills, and I thought actually equally important was the ability to communicate ideas effectively.”
Speaking in Christchurch on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Rainbow had got it “totally wrong” and it was appropriate he had apologised.
“He completely and quite wrongfully mischaracterised a New Zealand SIS report talking about threats to the Jewish community and he was wrong about that.
“He has subsequently apologised about that but equally Minister Goldsmith has or is talking to him about those comments as well.”
‘Not elabiorating further’ RNZ approached the Human Rights Commission on Thursday afternoon for a response to Yasbek doubling down on her recollection Rainbow had talked about the supposed antisemitism of Afghan refugees in West Auckland.
“The Chief Commissioner will not be elaborating further about what was said in the meeting,” a spokesperson said.
“He’s happy to discuss the matter privately with the people involved,” a spokesperson said.
“Dr Rainbow acknowledges that what was said caused harm and offence and what matters most is the impact on communities. That is why he has apologised unreservedly and stands by his apology.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
It had the hallmarks of a reality TV cliffhanger. Until recently, many people had never even heard of tariffs. Now, there’s been rolling live international coverage of so-called “Liberation Day”, as US President Donald Trump laid out tariffs to be imposed on countries around the world.
Just hours ago, Trump announced imports to the United States from all countries will be subject to a new “baseline” 10% tariff. This is an additional tax charged by US Customs and Border Protection when products cross the border.
The baseline tariff is expected to take effect from April 5, and the higher reciprocal tariffs on individual countries from April 9. That leaves no time for businesses to adjust their supply chains.
What might the next “episode” hold for the rest of the world? We can expect many countries to retaliate, bringing in tariffs and trade penalties of their own. That comes with risks.
Tariffs on the whole world
No country has been spared from today’s baseline tariffs, including many of the US’s traditional allies.
Vietnam will be among the hardest hit, with a 46% tariff. China, South Korea and Japan will also feel the brunt of the newest announcement – all subject to tariffs of between 24% and 34%. The European Union is subject to 20%.
In a recent speech, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said “all instruments are on the table”. She also stressed that the single market is the “safe harbour” for EU members.
Canada was apparently spared from the baseline 10% tariff. But it still has to contend with previously announced 25% tariffs on the automotive and other sectors.
Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, has said “nothing is off the table” in terms of retaliation.
Major tariffs on Asia
China’s 34% tariff is a further aggravation to already fractious relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Until this point, Vietnam had benefited from tensions between the US and China. These new enormous tariffs will have large ripple effects through not only Vietnam, but also less economically developed Cambodia (49% tariff) and Myanmar (44% tariff).
Is it worth fighting back?
Vulnerable countries may not have the leverage to fight back. It is hard to imagine what leverage Cambodia or Myanmar could have against the US, given the disparity in resources.
Other countries consider it is not worth the fight. For example, Australia is rightly questioning whether a tit-for-tat strategy is effective, or will just ramp up the problem further.
One country that has flown under the radar is Russia. Two-way trade with Russia is small, and subject to sanctions. But US media have reported Trump would like to expand the trading relationship in the future.
A nightmare for the US Postal Service
One of the interesting side effects of Trump’s announcements relates to what trade experts call the “de minimis” rule: usually, if you make a small purchase online, you don’t pay import taxes when the item arrives in your country.
Trump closed this loophole in February. Now, US tariffs apply to everything, even if below the “de minimis” amount of US$800.
This won’t just be a nightmare for online shoppers. Some 100,000 small parcels arrive in the US every hour. Tariffs will now have to be calculated on each package and in coordination with US Customs and Border Protection.
Boycotts and retaliation
We can also expect consumer backlash to increase worldwide, too. Canada’s “elbows up” movement is one template.
Consumers around the world are already choosing to redirect their spending away from US products, expressing their anger at the Trump administration’s stance on trade, diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, environmental protection, gender rights and more.
Consumers should be careful about jumping on the bandwagon without doing their homework, though. Boycotting a US fast food outlet might make you feel better (and frankly may be better for your health), but that’s also going to impact the local franchise owner.
Hating Americans en masse is also not productive – many US citizens are themselves deeply upset at what is happening.
Claiming victory while consumers pay more
Watch out for the impending claim of victory – one of Trump’s mantras popularised in the recent movie, The Apprentice.
The US trade deficit rocketed after Trump’s previous tariff announcements this year, as importers scrambled to stockpile supplies before price increases.
This cannot happen this time, because the tariffs come into effect in just three days.
In the short term, the monthly trade deficit will decline if imports return to normal, which will give Trump a chance to claim the policies are working – even if it’s just a rebound effect.
But these tariffs will harm rather than help ordinary Americans. Everyday purchases like clothes (made in places like Vietnam, Cambodia and China) could soon cost a lot more than they used to – with a $20 t-shirt going up to nearly $30, not including US sales taxes.
As this reality TV-style trade drama continues to unfold, the world should prepare for more episodes, more cliffhangers, and more uncertainty.
Lisa Toohey receives public research funding from the Australian Government and is a past recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.
The US administration claims these tariffs on imports will reduce the US trade deficit and address what it views as unfair and non-reciprocal trade practices. Trump said this would
forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.
The “reciprocal” tariffs are designed to impose charges on other countries equivalent to half the costs they supposedly inflict on US exporters through tariffs, currency manipulation and non-tariff barriers levied on US goods.
Each nation received a tariff number that will apply to most goods. Notable sectors exempt include steel, aluminium and motor vehicles, which are already subject to new tariffs.
The minimum baseline tariff for each country is 10%. But many countries received higher numbers, including Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%), China (34%), Indonesia (32%), Taiwan (32%) and Switzerland (31%).
The tariff number for China is in addition to an existing 20% tariff, so the total tariff applied to Chinese imports is 54%. Countries assigned 10% tariffs include Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Canada and Mexico are exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, for now, but goods from those nations are subject to a 25% tariff under a separate executive order.
Although some countries do charge higher tariffs on US goods than the US imposes on their exports, and the “Liberation Day” tariffs are allegedly only half the full reciprocal rate, the calculations behind them are open to challenge.
For example, non-tariff measures are notoriously difficult to estimate and “subject to much uncertainty”, according to one recent study.
GDP impacts with retaliation
Other countries are now likely to respond with retaliatory tariffs on US imports. Canada (the largest destination for US exports), the EU and China have all said they will respond in kind.
To estimate the impacts of this tit-for-tat trade standoff, I use a global model of the production, trade and consumption of goods and services. Similar simulation tools – known as “computable general equilibrium models” – are widely used by governments, academics and consultancies to evaluate policy changes.
The first model simulates a scenario in which the US imposes reciprocal and other new tariffs, and other countries respond with equivalent tariffs on US goods. Estimated changes in GDP due to US reciprocal tariffs and retaliatory tariffs by other nations are shown in the table below.
The tariffs decrease US GDP by US$438.4 billion (1.45%). Divided among the nation’s 126 million households, GDP per household decreases by $3,487 per year. That is larger than the corresponding decreases in any other country. (All figures are in US dollars.)
Proportional GDP decreases are largest in Mexico (2.24%) and Canada (1.65%) as these nations ship more than 75% of their exports to the US. Mexican households are worse off by $1,192 per year and Canadian households by $2,467.
Other nations that experience relatively large decreases in GDP include Vietnam (0.99%) and Switzerland (0.32%).
Some nations gain from the trade war. Typically, these face relatively low US tariffs (and consequently also impose relatively low tariffs on US goods). New Zealand (0.29%) and Brazil (0.28%) experience the largest increases in GDP. New Zealand households are better off by $397 per year.
Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world (all nations except the US) decreases by $62 billion.
At the global level, GDP decreases by $500 billion (0.43%). This result confirms the well-known rule that trade wars shrink the global economy.
GDP impacts without retaliation
In the second scenario, the modelling depicts what happens if other nations do not react to the US tariffs. The changes in the GDP of selected countries are presented in the table below.
Countries that face relatively high US tariffs and ship a large proportion of their exports to the US experience the largest proportional decreases in GDP. These include Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Switzerland, South Korea and China.
Countries that face relatively low new tariffs gain, with the UK experiencing the largest GDP increase.
The tariffs decrease US GDP by $149 billion (0.49%) because the tariffs increase production costs and consumer prices in the US.
Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world decreases by $155 billion, more than twice the corresponding decrease when there was retaliation. This indicates that the rest of the world can reduce losses by retaliating. At the same time, retaliation leads to a worse outcome for the US.
Previous tariff announcements by the Trump administration dropped sand into the cogs of international trade. The reciprocal tariffs throw a spanner into the works. Ultimately, the US may face the largest damages.
Niven Winchester has previously received funding from the Productivity Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to estimate the impacts of potential trade policies. He is affiliated with Motu Economic & Public Policy Research.
US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is doing little to enhance his country’s standing abroad. But it is helping to reinforce his political authority at home.
Congress and the courts are typically deferential to the president on foreign policy – and, in particular, issues related to national security. By putting most of his agenda under the banner of foreign policy, Trump is now taking advantage of that deference to minimise challenges to his power.
Trump has claimed for decades that US domestic problems can be solved with a more aggressive foreign policy.
This focus certainly helps him deal with his political problems, allowing him to attack his enemies and evade accountability under the guise of “saving the country”.
Trump has even gone so far as to call April 2 – when sweeping new tariffs are imposed on foreign goods – “Liberation Day”.
We are used to thinking of the US president as having almost unlimited power over US foreign policy. But the Constitution actually gives a lot of that power to Congress.
For example, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. It also gives Congress the power to “collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”, which include tariffs.
Given these shared responsibilities, the legal scholar Edward Corwin described the Constitution as “an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.”
Since at least the Second World War, the president has been decisively winning that struggle. Or more accurately, Congress has been declining invitations to use its power.
For example, American wars no longer begin with declarations. The US has not declared war since 1941, even though the country has been at war almost every yearsince then. Presidents instead initiate and escalate military conflict in other ways, nearly always with Congressional approval. That approval usually remains in place until a war goes badly wrong.
Congress also passed legislation in 1934 giving the president power to negotiate trade agreements and adjust tariffs. That power expanded significantly with an act in 1962 that authorised the president to impose tariffs if imports threaten “national security”.
Although Trump claims tariffs will bring economic prosperity back to the US by reviving manufacturing, his administration justifies them on national security grounds. For example, it is currently using another federal act passed in 1977 that allows tariffs in response to an international emergency as justification for its tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The courts are supposed to review the constitutionality of government actions. But on foreign policy, the courts have been deferential to the president even longer than Congress.
In a sweeping judgement in 1918, the Supreme Court wrote that foreign relations counted as a “political power” of the executive and legislative branches, not subject to judicial review.
A federal judge recently complained the Trump administration ignored his order blocking deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting the Venezuelans, even though some have no criminal record.
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued the deportations were a “foreign policy matter”, and “we can’t have the judges running foreign policy”.
Mass deportation is one of Trump’s most popular policies. If he is going to pick fights with the judiciary, it makes political sense to do it on an issue where public opinion is on his side – even if the law is not.
Rubio’s comment is also a likely preview of the arguments Trump’s lawyers will make when cases about immigration reach the Supreme Court.
Deportations under both acts are going to face legal challenges. But the Trump administration is betting the Supreme Court will take Trump’s side, given its conservative members generally hold an expansive view of executive power.
A Supreme Court win would be a major political victory for Trump. It would encourage him to focus even more on using deportation as a political weapon, and making foreign policy justifications for legally dubious acts.
War as a political tool
Trump is effectively putting the US on a war footing. He is justifying his executive actions by recasting allies as enemies who menace national security with everything from illegal drugs to unfair subsidies, and by labelling millions of foreign nationals as “invaders”.
Many Americans don’t believe him. But as long as he can make threatening foreigners the main focus of American politics, he can find political and legal support for almost anything he wants to do.
David Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Having the freedom to choose your own health care provider is something many Americans take for granted. But the Supreme Court is weighing whether people who rely on Medicaid for their health insurance have that right, and if they do – is it enforceable by law?
“There’s a right, and the right is the right to choose your doctor,” said Justice Elena Kagan on April 2, 2025, during oral arguments on the case. John J. Bursch, the Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer who is representing South Carolina Director of Health and Human Services Eunice Medina, countered that none of the words in the underlying statute had what he called a “rights-creating pedigree.”
The case started with Julie Edwards, who is enrolled in Medicaid and lives in South Carolina. After she struggled to get contraceptive services, she was able to receive care from a Planned Parenthood South Atlantic clinic in Columbia, South Carolina.
Planned Parenthood and Edwards sued South Carolina, claiming that the state was violating the federal Medicare and Medicaid Act, which Congress passed in 1965, by not letting Edwards obtain care from the provider of her choice.
A ‘free-choice-of-provider’ requirement
Medicaid operates as a partnership between the federal government and the states. Congress passed the law that led to its creation based on its power under the Constitution’s spending clause, which allows Congress to subject federal funds to certain requirements.
Two years later, due to concerns that states were restricting which providers Medicaid recipients could choose, Congress added a “free-choice-of-provider” requirement to the program. It states that people enrolled in Medicaid “may obtain such assistance from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to perform the service or services required.”
This provision is at the core of this case. At issue is whether a civil rights statute provides a right for Medicaid beneficiaries to sue a state when their federal rights have been violated. Known as Section 1983, it was enacted in 1871.
Bursch, backed by the Trump administration, argued before the court that the absence of words like “right” in the Medicaid provision that requires states to provide a free choice of provider means that neither Edwards nor Planned Parenthood has the authority to file a lawsuit to enforce this aspect of the Medicaid statute.
Nicole A. Saharsky, Planned Parenthood’s lawyer, argued that the creation of a right shouldn’t depend on “some kind of magic words test.” Instead, she said it was clear that the Medicaid statute created “a right to choose their own doctor” because “it’s mandatory” that the state provide this option to everyone with health insurance through Medicaid.
She also emphasized that Congress wanted to protect “an intensely personal right” to be able “to choose your doctor, the person that you see when you’re at your most vulnerable, facing … some of the most significant … challenges to your life and your health.”
Restricting Medicaid funds
Through a federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid cannot reimburse health care providers for the cost of abortions, with a few exceptions: when a patient’s life is at risk or her pregnancy is due to rape or incest. Some states do cover abortion when their laws allow it, without using any federal funds.
McMaster explained that he removed “abortion clinics,” including Planned Parenthood, from the South Carolina Medicaid Program because he didn’t want state funds to indirectly subsidize abortions.
South Carolina “decided that Planned Parenthood was unqualified for many reasons, chiefly because they’re the nation’s largest abortion provider,” Bursch told the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court has long recognized that Section 1983 protects an individual’s ability to sue when their rights under a federal statute have been violated.
The court’s decision in the Medina case on whether Medicaid patients can choose their own health care provider could have consequences far beyond South Carolina. Arkansas, Missouri and Texas have already barred Planned Parenthood from getting reimbursed by Medicaid for any kind of health care. More states could follow suit.
In addition, given Planned Parenthood’s role in providing expansive contraceptive care, disqualifying it from Medicaid could harm access to health care and increase the already-high unintended pregnancy rate in America.
The ramifications, likewise, could extend beyond the finances of Planned Parenthood.
If the court rules in South Carolina’s favor, states could also try to exclude providers based on other characteristics, such as whether their employees belong to unions or if they provide their patients with gender-affirming care, further restricting patients’ choices.
Or, as Kagan observed, states could go the opposite direction and exclude providers that don’t provide abortions and so forth. What’s really at stake, she said, is whether a patient is “entitled to see” the provider they choose regardless of what their state happens to “think about contraception or abortion or gender transition treatment.”
If the Supreme Court rules that Edwards does have a right to get health care at a Planned Parenthood clinic, the controversy would not be over. The lower courts would then have to decide whether South Carolina appropriately removed Planned Parenthood from Medicaid as an “unqualified provider.”
And if the Supreme Court rules in favor of South Carolina, then Planned Parenthood could still sue South Carolina over its decision to find them to be unqualified.
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.
This time around, Trump is replying on outdated tools — tariffs, small government, territorial expansion and nationalism — to solve modern problems of globalization, wealth disparities, the decline of manufacturing jobs and exploitative capitalism.
On April 2, he announced a baseline tariff of 10 per cent on all countries that import goods to the U.S., including Canada. Canada has also been hit with a 25 per cent levy on Canadian-made automobiles.
The Trump administration’s current use of 19th-century tools to solve 20th-century problems that are wholly inappropriate for the 21st century threatens to take America back to the 19th century. This is an incredibly dangerous road for the U.S to take.
The rise of the nation state
The 19th century was marked by the rise of the nation-state — a single political entity united by geography, culture and language.
The prevailing belief at the time was that nation-states should use tariffs, adopt isolationist policies to cut off the outside world and seize territory where possible. These measures, it was thought, would foster national unity and allow capitalism to thrive by letting the “invisible hand” of the marketplace work its magic.
Protective tariffs promised to grow domestic industries, but the economic benefits were not evenly distributed. Wealth disparities grew wider as millions of immigrants arrived on North American shores, only to find deplorable living conditions in the cities and hardscrabble farmland out in the country.
Some newcomers prospered, of course, but they tended to be those who arrived with money already in their pockets. And they fast learned how to exploit the lack of state-directed regulation, patches of corruption amid rapid western expansion and growing nativism and poverty to their own benefit.
Many of the 20th century’s problems flowed from these 19th-century trends.
The economic fallout of tariffs
Following the financial Panic of 1873 and its ensuing economic depression in both Europe and North America, nation-states unleashed tariffs to protect their domestic economies. It was the wrong strategy to pursue, as it slowed trade even more by limiting the free flow of goods and capital. Money, as is now well-known, needs to move to grow.
Western North American farmers were furious that tariffs forced them to buy on protected markets while selling on unprotected ones subject to international market prices. They organized, too, by forming farmer co-operatives and backing movements like the Granger movement, populism and progressivism to protect their interests.
Nation-states, warmed by rising nationalist fires, formed military-defence alliances across Europe and its colonial and former colonial holdings, including Canada. In 1914, these alliances led to the First World War, a global and industrial war the likes of which the world had never seen.
The Great Depression
By the 1930s, unrestricted and largely unregulated capitalism, together with astonishing wealth disparities and monopolistic tendencies, plunged the world into the decade-long Great Depression.
Many governments’ initial response was to impose tariffs once again, and just as in 1873, they only made the problem worse. The simultaneous rise of fascism, which was largely nationalism run amok, brought the world to war again at the end of the decade, to devastating consequence.
The post-war years saw a concerted international effort at using the nation-state to regulate domestic economies by investing in social services and programs and to rein in runaway capital when its excesses threatened stability.
International bodies like the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice were created to promote peace and stability. This new approach wasn’t always successful in its goals, but so far the world hasn’t seen any global hot wars or massive economic depressions.
The end of history
In 1992, historian Frances Fukuyama infamously declared that the world had reached “the end of history.”
He didn’t mean that time stopped, of course. Instead, he was arguing that the liberal nation-state represented “the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
In his view, the western industrialized world had reached the pinnacle of successful governance and unlimited prosperity.
Yet, even as western liberal democracy was congratulating itself on its own success, these same nation-states, in conjunction with large corporations, were seeking out lower labour costs and greater profit in the developing world.
This is where the Trump administration re-enters the story — tapping into the frustration and disillusionment of frustrated Americans by promising to restore a “golden age” that never was.
Trump’s 19th-century playbook
Despite his promises, Trump’s tariffs are unlikely to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. As history has shown, tariffs do not revive industries that are already gone; instead, they will only make Americans pay more for the things they need.
Trump’s rhetoric about territorial expansion, including threats to annex Greenland and Canada, won’t make the U.S. more secure. It will just exacerbate the sort of international tensions the world saw in 1914 and 1939.
And with limited resources left to exploit, it’s becoming harder for capital to sustain itself, even as it seeks to wrest whatever is left from our planet, the realities of environmental catastrophe be damned.
Nationalism, meanwhile, won’t foster a sense of national unity. It will only deepen existing divisions based on race and class. And if history is any guide, the consequences could be even more dire this time around, even pushing the world toward a global conflict unlike anything seen before.
Eric Strikwerda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Certainly that has been the tone of some of the reporting following the emergence of photosand videos depicting massive new Chinese barges designed for land-to-sea military operations. The fact that China launched a two-day military drill in the Taiwan Strait on April 1, 2025, has only intensified such fears.
To me, the curious thing regarding these musings about a potential war involving China, which has one of the world’s most advanced militaries, is that it is supported by reference to technology first used some 80 years ago – specifically, the Mulberry Harbours, floating piers that allowed Allies to deploy land vehicles onto the beaches at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
As an expert on the history and geopolitics of the Mulberry Harbours, I believe using the World War II example obscures far more than it clarifies with regard to the geopolitical situation today. Indeed, while the new Chinese ships may be operationally similar to their historical forebears, the strategic situation in China and Taiwan is far different.
Disquiet on the Pacific front?
The possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, an island the Chinese Communist Party sees as part of its territory, is perhaps the most pressing security issue for countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Aside from the geopolitics, any China decision to invade Taiwan would mean attempting an extremely challenging military operation that is, historically speaking, a risky proposition. Seaborne invasions have often led to high casualties or even outright failure.
The Gallipoli landings on the coast of Turkey during World War I, for example, led to the withdrawal of mainly Australian and New Zealand forces after high casualties and barely any territorial gains. In World War II, island-hopping by U.S. forces to push back Japan’s advance achieved strategic goals – but at a high human cost.
The difficulty posed by sea-to-land invasion is not just the battles on Day 1, it is the logistical challenge of continuing to funnel troops and materiel to sustain a push out from the beachhead. That’s where the barges come into play.
About those WWII barges …
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was skeptical of opening a front against Nazi Germany by a landing on the French coast – a position that frustrated the United States. The main concern of Churchill and his generals was the logistical puzzle. They reasoned that Germany would either retain control of French ports or sabotage them, and that tanks, guns, food, soldiers and other necessities were not going to be brought up from reserve via ports.
The Mulberry Harbours fixed that problem by creating a set of floating piers that would rise up and down with the tide by being fixed to sophisticated anchors. Ships could moor to these piers and unload needed material. The piers were protected by an inner ring of concrete caissons, dragged across the channel and sunk into position, and an outer breakwater of scuttled ships. The Mulberry Harbours were a combination of cutting-edge pier technology and improvisation.
Construction of a Mulberry Harbour, and the unloading of supplies for the Allies at Colleville, France, in 1944. Three Lions/Getty Images
The images of Chinese invasion barges today show that the technology has advanced, but the principle of an operational need for logistical support of a beachhead breakout is the same.
Yet the geography of any invasion is very different. In World War II, the Mulberry Harbours were part of an invasion from an island to conquer a continent. But a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be the inverse – from a continent to an island.
Great power politics, Chinese characteristics
The use of Mulberry Harbours, as innovative as it was, was only a moment in a longer geopolitical process.
The D-Day invasion was the culmination of the transfer of U.S. military might across the Atlantic through Operation Bolero. Simply, the United Kingdom became a giant warehouse – mainly for U.S. soldiers and equipment.
The Mulberry Harbours made the crossing of the English Channel possible for these men and weapons. It was the last step in the projection of U.S. power across the Atlantic Ocean and on to the European continent. I describe this as a process of a seapower moving from its near or coastal waters to far waters in another part of the globe.
The calculation for China is very different. Certainly, barges would help an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. But China sees Taiwan as part of its near waters, and it wants to secure those waters from global competition.
Beijing views the U.S. as having established a military presence just off its coastline from World War II to the present day, making the western Pacific another set of U.S. far waters across the globe accompanying its European presence. From its perspective, China is surrounded by a U.S. military based in Okinawa, Guam and the Philippines. This chain of bases could restrict China’s ambition through blockade, and controlling Taiwan would help China create a gap in this chain.
Chinese invasion barges could be deployed quite early in China’s process of moving from near to far waters. The Mulberry Harbours, conversely, were deployed once the U.S. had already secured its Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific near waters.
Part of a process
Technical matters and historical comparisons with the Mulberry Harbours are an interesting way to look at the new Chinese invasion barges and consider the operational scale of geopolitics. But as with the World War II case, China-Taiwan tensions are simply a modern example of a local theater – this time, the Taiwanese Strait – being part of a greater global process of power projection. The comparisons to Mulberry Harbours, therefore, are not with the technology itself but its role in a mechanism of historical geopolitical change.
The reemergence of the technology of invasion barges may be a sign that a new conflict is on the horizon. If that were the case, the irony is that China would be using Mulberry Harbour-type technology to secure its position in the western Pacific at the same time the Trump administration is questioning the strategic value of the U.S. presence in Europe – a presence established through World War II and, at least in part, the use of the Mulberry Harbours.
Colin Flint 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.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and media personality Ben Shapiro at a PragerU event in Florida on March 27, 2025. (@DanielleSmith, X)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is facing fierce criticism for using taxpayer money to meet American far-right pundit Ben Shapiro in Florida as part of a recent fundraiser for conservative think tank PragerU.
Smith was initially opposed to retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., but eventually acquiesced. Nonetheless, she recently scoffed at a poll that showed a majority of Canadians (68.1 per cent), even in the Prairies (58.8 per cent), support retaliatory tariffs on oil and gas.
Those defending her Florida appearance argue that Smith intended to reach out to a conservative American audience to present Alberta’s case in the face of Trump’s tariffs.
She appeared to attempt a balancing act as she stressed the harms of tariffs without strongly pushing back against Trump’s annexation rhetoric.
The problem with subservience
I’ve argued that a better response to Trump’s tariffs would be countervailing power, not abject subservience. Additionally, Smith’s approach to Trump’s anti-Canada actions doesn’t reflect the will of Canadians who are pushing back democratically through consumer boycotts of American goods.
Smith’s critics also argue that she cannot achieve more than social pleasantries in her forays to the U.S. to hobnob with right-wing personalities. Generally, the approach of talking to the far right is contingent on various factors, including subject matter and timing, to be successful.
The benefits of Smith exchanging social pleasantries and pleading her case with the far right in the U.S. comes at the cost of breaking rank from the united stand Canadians need given the perceived existential threat to their country.
Additionally, Smith shared a platform with those who hold hardcore beliefs about women’s autonomy, LGBTQ rights and who peddle pseudo-academia in the “intellectual dark web,” sending a troubling message to many Canadians.
The economics of Smith’s approach
Understanding Smith’s response on retaliatory tariffs requires understanding the economics behind it.
Smith has an undergraduate degree in economics. But textbook neoclassical economics itself is problematic. I’ve already addressed the shortcomings of mainstream neoclassical economics on climate change in both mainstream and academic work.
In his book Economism, American law professor James Kwak highlights the problems with Economics 101 as it’s taught at universities around the world. He argues it leaves students with simplistic soundbites long after they’ve graduated that informs their political thinking in later life.
Her economic approach complements her libertarian approach that apparently involves courting right-wing groups that are often small government proponents.
When it comes to tariffs, textbook economics extols the benefits of free trade without addressing serious issues of environmental degradation and working conditions. Those studying this mainstream economic school of thought may have been left with the overwhelming impression that when the U.S. imposes tariffs, it only hurts itself.
Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw’s bestselling principles textbook shoots down arguments about how tariffs save jobs, protect infant industries, strengthen national security and prevent unfair competition.
Several Canadian economists don’t see economic merit in retaliatory tariffs and relegate the issue to politics. Trained within the mainstream neoclassical model, they also view tariffs as categorically harmful.
Australian economist Steve Keen has pointed out that mainstream economics did not have much to say about the global financial crisis in 2008. This is partly because of the belief in what’s known as the “efficient market hypothesis” that contends stocks always trade at fair value.
In terms of this “do nothing” approach in neoclassical economics, Smith’s response on retaliatory tariffs is therefore not surprising.
Steve Keen in an interview on the problems with neoclassical economics.
Alternative economics approaches
My approach to teaching economics is aimed at prioritizing worker rights, equality, environmental standards and local resilience, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when supply chains were disrupted. I also believe unanimity is required for retaliatory economic sanctions and boycotts to work.
That’s because retaliatory tariffs and separate radical responses work when co-ordination difficulties and the “free rider” problem — meaning an individual benefits from collective effort without contributing — are minimized. A united front is required, which Smith is violating when she goes rogue in courting the American far right.
These perspectives don’t categorically reject tariffs. Instead, they highlight the role of targeted tariffs and focus on local resilience and workers’ rights, offering an alternative to the status quo.
Overall, these new models are a better alternative to Smith’s style of subservience, or do-nothing approaches based on inertia that has seeped into mainstream economics. Both of these outdated responses to American tariffs seem particularly dangerous during this tumultuous period in Canada-U.S. history.
Junaid B. Jahangir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For some people, the mere sight of someone tapping their foot, twirling their hair or clicking a pen can trigger an intense sense of discomfort, or even rage. This reaction is known as “misokinesia”, a sensitivity to repetitive movements that can make everyday interactions challenging.
It is only a recently explored phenomenon in research. But studies suggest that up to one-third of the population experiences some level of discomfort when confronted with the repetitive movements of other people. These triggers can include things such as another person bounding their leg repeatedly, or biting their nails, fidgeting – even yawning. Misokinesia may affect a person’s job and their personal lives.
Misokinesia produces what has been likened by some as a “fight or flight” response in people living with the condition, with reactions including an increase in blood pressure, adrenaline and heart palpitations. Other physical reactions such as nausea are possible too.
There can also be cognitive reactions, such as a lack of focus or patience, negative or violent thoughts, and feelings of anger and disgust.
It can be person-specific. This means that people who experience misokenisia find some people’s repetitive actions are more triggering than others. This can make it difficult to spend time with particular people comfortably due to their opposing needs. For example, it may be difficult for a person with misokinesia to be around someone who is stimming (employing self-stimulating behaviour such as leg bouncing) for emotional regulation.
Misophonia
Misokinesia is similar to misophonia, which is a strong dislike or hatred of certain sounds, often made by people, such as yawning, breathing or chewing. It can also be person-specific and can affect a person’s day-to-day life, including their ability to regulate their emotions.
Misophonia often co-occurs with anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Misokinesia, however, is entirely visual. While the two conditions can co-occur, they are distinct experiences.
Given that some people with misophonia report experiencing misokinesia too, it suggests a possible shared neurological basis. But research into both conditions remains in its early stages.
The exact causes of misokinesia remain unclear, but it may be due to a combination of neurological, psychological and genetic factors. There is evidence that neurodivergent people, including autistic people and those with ADHD, may be more likely to experience both misokinesia and misophonia.
People with both of these conditions may experience stigma, with other people believing they are overreacting. This can affect whether a person who experiences misokinesia will share their experiences with others. It can also reduce the likelihood that they will seek support.
There is no official diagnosis for misokinesia, nor for misophonia. Discussions are ongoing about whether they should be recognised as clinical conditions, however.
Can misokinesia be managed?
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) may be one way to reduce the effects of both misokinesia and misophonia on a person’s life. CBT can help a person identify their triggers, acknowledge their reactions and learn relaxation techniques to practice in real-life scenarios. Practicing relaxation techniques, can help to manage both the physiological and mental responses to a trigger.
Practical strategies, such as subtly blocking one’s view of the movement, shifting focus to another part of the environment, or explaining triggers to those around them may also help reduce distress.
Rebecca Ellis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kiera Vaclavik, Professor of Children’s Literature & Childhood Culture, Queen Mary University of London
This spring, Babe is returning to cinemas to mark the 30th anniversary of its release in 1995. The much-loved family film tells the deceptively simple but emotionally powerful story of a piglet who saves his bacon through intelligence, kindness and hard work.
Babe becomes the trusted ally of both farmer and farmyard animals and, like so many Hollywood heroes before and since, he refuses to stay in his lane.
It’s a film which, on paper, really shouldn’t work and which sounds alarm bells to any self-respecting children’s literature scholar like me. It takes an expertly crafted English children’s book with tasteful black-and-white illustrations – Dick King-Smith’s The Sheep Pig (1983) – and turns it into an all-singing, all-dancing technicolour extravaganza.
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The film inserts new episodes and characters – an evil cat, a plucky duck and (most alarmingly) a brace of brattish kids. And it replaces a perfectly good, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin book title with the cutesy moniker of the piglet star.
It shouldn’t work … but it really, really does. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of the most successful film adaptations of a children’s book of all time.
It met with both commercial and critical success, making over US$254 million at the box office and being nominated for no less than seven Academy Awards, one of which it secured for visual effects.
So, what exactly is so special about Babe? It was one of the first films which, thanks to the then-cutting edge combination of animatronics and visual effects, delivered convincing talking animals who, endowed with the gift of speech, could themselves “look like movie stars”. But with all the jaw-dropping technological advances of the last 30 years, how has this film managed to stand the test of time so well?
The answer in part is that its source material is exceptionally strong. The Sheep Pig is written with restraint and economy, but also great warmth and relish. King-Smith has immense fun, wallowing in words like the proverbial pig in muck, and putting it all to the service of a story whose core values are easy to get behind. The Sheep Pig is a soft-power parable which advocates for brains over brawn, for respectful communication and common decency.
But the excellence of a film’s bookish bedrock is no guarantee of success. Indeed, the brilliance of a book can often be something of a liability. Think of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, or any of the film and TV adaptations of Noel Streatfeild’s superb Ballet Shoes. With Babe, though, the book is catalyst rather than straitjacket, an enabling prompt which initiates a new work of equal strength and quality.
The pacing is well judged, the look of the film lush, and there are several actual laugh-out-loud moments – including the duck’s panicked realisation that “Christmas means carnage!” Above all, it’s a film with immense emotional intelligence and power.
Recognised for its visual effects, it also succeeds in large part because of the strength of its soundscape and score. There’s one scene in particular which really soars, and which takes on the elephant in the room: the human habit of eating pigs.
Babe is so shocked and upset on learning this fact from the evil cat (who else?) that he loses the will not just to win in the sheepdog trial, but to live at all. The supremely taciturn Father Hoggett must act to make amends and save his pig protégé.
In an astonishingly moving act of love, this man of few words takes the sickly and sick-at-heart pig onto his lap and sings to him. At first a gentle crooning, the farmer’s expression of care and affection soon swells to an out-and-out bellow, accompanied by a wild, caution-to-the-wind dance.
It’s difficult to imagine a more lyrically apt song than the 1977 reggae-inflected hit based on the powerful tune of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: “If I had words”, it begins. It’s a moment of huge emotional force and intensity, in which the gaping abyss of age and species difference are bridged through music and dance.
James Cromwell as Farmer Hoggett, here and throughout the film, is tremendous, his reserved performance a key factor in its success. The role – which he almost didn’t take because of the paucity of lines – was career-defining, and prompted personal epiphanies which flow naturally from this scene.
First, Cromwell never ate meat again. Second, he has spoken (with visible emotion) of the delivery of the film’s final pithy-but-powerful line of approbation – “That’ll do pig, that’ll do” – as a moment of communion with his father on catching sight of his own artificially aged reflection in the camera lens. “My life changed, and I owe it to a pig,” the actor concludes.
Babe is a film and an adaptation with many qualities. It’s wholesome without ever being sickly. But above all, it has an emotional force which worked on actors and audiences alike and which, 30 years later, remains undiminished.
Kiera Vaclavik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The extremist organisation had existed as a mere “paper state” since its founding as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in October 2006. But the video release of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declaring himself the caliph on July 4 2014 marked a turning point in contemporary history.
IS subsequently published hundreds of videos, some of which shocked the world with their graphic violence. Ideological enemies of the caliphate were executed by beheading or being burned alive.
But while the violence mobilised global opposition to what the then-US president, Barack Obama, called IS’s “bankrupt” ideology, the group used video as its go-to medium for IS propaganda and recruitment.
The group’s official videos, generally described as “slick” and “Hollywood-esque”, heavily emphasised two vital aspects of its identity: Islamic and state. The Islamic aspect of IS has been debated at length by scholars – especially the question of how much they had to do with Islam, if at all. But little research has been done to investigate the statehood claim made by IS.
The fact IS termed itself as Islamic State, or ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah
(الدولة الإسلامية) in Arabic, demonstrated its claim to be a state in the truest sense of the word – not just to citizens living in the territory it controlled, but to its supporters and enemies worldwide.
IS also presented evidence of state-building activities in the form of official propaganda releases. These aimed not only to back up its statehood claims but to seek recognition from its subjects and supporters for the caliphate project.
For our book, Islamic State, Media and Propaganda: Performances of the ‘Visual Caliphate’, we conducted an in-depth visual analysis of 374 official IS videos. These were published between the caliphate’s establishment in July 2014 and its dismantlement in July 2017, and collected from various online IS channels before their takedown in mid-2015, when Twitter started suspending thousands of pro-IS accounts en-masse.
We looked at the videos IS produced through four different analyses.
1. Population
The population analysis reveals IS’s portrayal of itself as a vibrant Islamic society. IS depicted its people as a cohesive community living under shariah law, emphasising gendered roles and the Bay’ah citizenship agreement, which privileged Sunni Muslims while marginalising minorities.
This analysis highlights the disproportionate portrayal of men as fighters and breadwinners. Women, meanwhile, were largely invisible on screen, confined to domestic roles as wives and mothers. Young boys were groomed as future fighters while girls were portrayed as “pearls of chastity” and trained to raise the next generation of the caliphate.
Surprisingly, women did make a one-off appearance when they were shown fighting alongside men on the battlefield as the caliphate was on its last legs.
2. Territory
This analysis unravels three stages of IS’s expansionist territorial strategy. First, identify enemy targets and territory. Second, attack and defeat the enemy. Finally, project the victory to followers and opponents alike.
The videos also show IS exercising sovereignty over its territory – aiming to legitimise its rule in the eyes of its subjects, and encourage global supporters to emigrate, join and defend IS.
The group projected itself as a de facto sovereign state capable of capturing, controlling and defending its territory with the help of modern technology such as drones, maps and weaponry. It depicted any severe military setbacks it suffered as a divine test – and heavily downplayed their importance.
3. Governance
This showcases IS’s efforts to project itself as a modern state by documenting its governance practices, including law enforcement, public services and administration. IS presented itself as a revolutionary state that brought peace and security to a war-torn region.
The governance mode of analysis highlights IS’s theatrical performances of its ability to run a state. Videos showed civil servants working in offices as well as civilians engaging with the state institutions they ran. They regularly featured state symbols such as the IS flag and its gold dinar currency.
These displays of performative governance were made at a time when the caliphate was constantly pummelled by military operations conducted by both US- and Russia-led coalitions.
Despite its strict Salafi identity (an orthodox Islamic movement that advocates a return to the practices and beliefs of the first three generations of Muslims), IS presented itself as a modern state by deploying tools such as its own branding, currency, infrastructure and taxation.
4. Foreign policy
IS interactions with other states and non-state actors were presented as foreign policy. It rejected the modern international system, which it deemed un-Islamic, and refused to seek recognition from the international community. Instead, IS engaged in “rebel diplomacy” with other jihadi groups. The aim was to co-opt them into its global network of affiliates.
Our analysis reveals how IS used civilian casualties caused by coalition airstrikes to justify terror attacks abroad. It also selectively quoted Islamic texts to legitimise its actions, and took matters into its own hands when religious teachings did not fit its narrative.
An example of this was the horrific burning alive of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh. According to a narrative attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, burning alive as a form of punishment is forbidden in Islam.
Our research underscores IS’s unique status as a jihadi organisation that came close to establishing a de facto state. This was an unprecedented feat in contemporary history, and shows how IS’s theatrical performances of statehood were carefully scripted and staged. Jihadi-led violence has subsided across the Middle East and North Africa since the territorial collapse of IS in 2017.
But it has risen in other regions of Asia and Africa, including Central Asia, East Africa and the Sahel region. So our findings can help in the understanding of how the blueprint of the caliphate might inspire and influence existing and future jihadi movements with statebuilding ambitions.
Moign Khawaja received funding from the Irish Research Council as part of the IRC-Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
Cycling is not only a way to reduce carbon emissions, it also has huge health benefits. LeManna/Shutterstock
The current UK government and its recent predecessors have shown a reluctance to encourage and enable lifestyle changes that reduce our collective demand for energy.
Fearing a backlash from voters, many UK politicians neglect key weapons in the fight to mitigate climate change. These include directing investment away from building roads to public transport, establishing reliable infrastructure for the charging and repair of electric vehicles, and making reduction of car travel a key priority for urban planners.
As researchers focusing on how to accelerate climate action, we argue that shying away from changing the way we live is counterproductive. Conflict and disagreement are part of social change, but there are positive ways forward.
The problems and, critically, the solutions have overwhelmingly been presented by UK governments as technological. But many of these technologies are still only in development.
Practical use of nuclear fusion (the energy-generating mechanism that powers the sun), for example, has long been spoken of as “30 years away”. The efficacy of direct air capture (a set of technologies that extract CO₂ directly from the atmosphere) remains a matter of conjecture.
In the run-up to the 2024 UK general election, we conducted a survey of almost 3,000 UK citizens – of which just over half (51%) expressed support for a net zero carbon emissions target. Given the apparent indifference or outright opposition of a substantial proportion of voters, it is not surprising that politicians seek to minimise objections to net zero policy by downplaying any suggestion of personal disruption.
Our survey also asked about people’s willingness to make specific lifestyle changes (to home energy, diet and travel) for climate reasons. On average, 43% were already acting or firmly planning to do so. Another 28% said they might be prepared to make such changes in the future.
Willingness to make climate-related lifestyle changes:
This ties in with other research which indicates that people are open to significant changes in their lifestyle to support net zero, if the conditions are right. So, how can this potential for change be realised?
The answer, we argue, lies in the recent past. Over the last year, as part of a social science taskforce on net zero, we looked back at a diverse range of case studies of societal change to draw lessons for future policy. We now propose that five key steps are needed for effective net zero action.
1. Galvanise people
When seeking to build support for contentious change, it is vital to identify issues that can galvanise people. These will often relate to other (non-net zero) benefits. For instance, “school streets” projects have been successful, where other traffic reduction policies have failed, because they emphasise the benefits to the health and wellbeing of children.
Similarly, the rapid switch from coal heating to gas central heating in the 1960s and ’70s was partly connected to a popular movement for cleaner, “decent” homes.
Identifying issues that unify people can galvanise support from local communities. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock
2. Focus on fairness
In our survey, just 37% of people saw a fairer society as a likely outcome of net zero actions, while 63% identified individual finances as a major challenge to achieving net zero. Regulation needs to establish a close connection between net zero measures and equity, so that no groups are unfairly burdened or advantaged. This requires an honest discussion about downsides and trade-offs.
Measures that focus on cheaper bills, affordable devices, accessible transport and the alleviation of fuel poverty will build optimism. In the successful Danish transition to district heating from the mid-1970s, ensuring affordable and reliable energy was vital in gaining support, as was giving residents a say in decision-making.
3. Make the policy process relatable
We noticed that survey participants expressed a lot of cynicism and uncertainty about government action on net zero. Nearly half (46%) doubted that the net zero target was achievable, while most people (62%) had serious concerns about vested interests, under-resourced local authorities (59%), and a lack of government investment in infrastructure (59%).
People also feel disconnected from decision-making. Many said they had little or no influence on climate policy (59%), and felt there was a lack of power in communities (51%).
Local authorities, businesses, community groups and other third-sector organisations can help bridge these gaps between national government and everyday life. They should play a key role delivering net zero policies that fit with local needs and issues.
When Denmark switched to district heating, the delegation of powers to municipal authorities was crucial in supporting community ownership models and empowering residents and community groups. Properly resourced local climate commissions – town- and city-wide groups that bring together local organisations and businesses – can provide an independent, trusted voice to help drive climate action at a local level.
4. Listen to other people
People need the chance to listen to and engage with each other. If they doubt their opinions and concerns are recognised, or if their worries are viewed as nothing more than obstacles, conflict becomes more likely.
Proper dialogue through collaborations like climate citizens’ assemblies can improve understanding of different positions, aspirations and capabilities. Once legitimate concerns and unintended consequences have been identified, potential solutions can be explored.
There is certainly support for this more interactive approach: 40% of people in our survey felt that affected communities should have a considerable influence on climate policies, alongside local authorities (40%) and elected MPs (42%).
Without these ongoing conversations, projects can fail. A Dutch carbon capture and storage project, using a depleted gas field under the town of Barendrecht to store CO₂ from a nearby refinery, was cancelled in 2010 following intense local opposition. The government and industry had failed to get public engagement right from the start.
5. Accept some opposition
Change to net zero is going to be difficult, and no step the UK government takes will completely eliminate the possibility of disruption and conflict. In our survey, nearly a quarter of respondents were opposed to the UK net zero target. So, politicians need to be more robust and interventionist in making a positive case for net zero, recognising that not everyone is going to agree.
However, there are grounds to be optimistic that action itself may help unlock support for net zero. Research that has followed school streets projects, for example, shows that once schemes are in place, support among residents and parents increases when anticipated problems (such as traffic displacement) do not materialise – and when the benefits, in terms of children walking and cycling more, become clear.
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How the Shuqiao barges may be used to ferry troops ashore. X (formerly Twitter)
China’s intentions when it comes to Taiwan have been at the centre of intense discussion for years. Both mainland China and Taiwan claim to represent the “real” China after the Kuomintang nationalist party under Chiang Kai Shek retreated across the Taiwan Strait and established the Republic of China there in 1949. Ever since then, mainland China – the People’s Republic – has maintained a claim over Taiwan.
But in recent years, Chinese leaders – including the current president, Xi Jinping – have talked of plans for “reunification” which would bring Taiwan and its population of 23 million under the control of Beijing. By force if necessary.
Now, the recent appearance of a handful of odd-looking barges at a beach in Guangdong province in the People’s Republic may be a significant movement towards that unwelcome potential outcome.
The Shuiqiao barges filmed in March 2025 working together to form a relocatable bridge – the name means “water bridge” – enable the transfer of vehicles, supplies and people between ship and shore, over shallow beaches and potential obstacles on to firm ground. Analysts have already pointed out that there is no obvious commercial role for such large vessels, so the most likely purpose is for landing armed forces during amphibious operations.
All major navies maintain some form of amphibious capability. The UK’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary, for example, operates the UK’s three bay class landing ships, which are due to be replaced by six modern multi-role strike ships. What is particularly significant, however, is that the Shuiqiao offers capabilities along similar lines to the Mulberry harbours built for the D-Day Normandy landings.
The specialised nature of these landing barges, with only one real purpose – to help land large numbers of military forces, stands in contrast with mainstream amphibious vessels. Bay class ships, for example, continue to be used for civilian evacuations, humanitarian aid, disaster relief and a wide range of military roles.
That is a crucial distinction as amphibious operations present huge logistical challenges. D-Day required 850,000 troops, 485,000 tons of supplies and 153,000 vehicles to be landed safely over the first three weeks. Ports tend to be difficult to seize intact, as was demonstrated to great cost during the 1942 raid on Dieppe, so it is generally necessary to land armies over the invasion beaches.
The ability to install temporary harbours, which is what the Shuiqiao bridges appear to provide, offers a means of quickly landing large forces from bigger ships to shore. That also reduces the number of specialised landing ships required, by enabling the use of commercial vessels for ferrying troops to those makeshift ports.
Is an invasion of Taiwan imminent?
What is of concern is that such specialised landing barges are not normally constructed until shortly before they are intended to be used. The Mulberry harbours went into production only a year before the Normandy landings. This is both to ensure they are in good working order when required, but also as they tend to offer little additional value and yet come at a significant price. In this present case, the nearest comparable civilian and military vessels cost hundreds of millions of dollars each.
This does not mean that their appearance guarantees that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent. At present there are reported to be three completed prototype landing barges ready for deployment and three under construction. This would offer one or two beach bridges, each an estimated 820 metres long.
That would be of minimal value in a major invasion. The single US Navy Jlots modular floating pier in Gaza, for example, was only able to land 8,800 tonnes of aid in 20 days. While the Gaza effort was affected by bad weather, any Shuiqiao landing bridges would face much more dangerous wartime conditions. Three to six barges could also still plausibly be intended for disaster relief, even if does not seem a particularly cost-effective means of delivering aid.
How the US Jlot floating pier works.
But if the number of these barges continues to increase then the assumption must be that a major amphibious expedition is likely within the next decade. Historically, neither the UK, US or any other major power has maintained more than a handful of such highly specialised landing vessels, except for when they intended to use them. In the case of these barges the target may not necessarily be Taiwan – although it would be the most obvious target.
Assuming that an invasion does not trigger a world war, it might still be unsuccessful. Despite years of preparation and near complete control of the sea and skies, the Normandy landings were incredibly perilous and at times looked at risk of defeat. Success came at great cost in lives, through great skill, and at times a little luck. More than 4,400 allied soldiers are believed to have died within the first 24 hours alone, with many more wounded.
Furthermore, getting forces ashore is only part of the challenge. Taiwan’s geography is not suited to rapid movement inland and in similar historic cases that has led to significant additional casualties and delays.
The battle of Anzio during the 1944 invasion of Italy, for example, registered tens of thousands of casualties as the allies struggled to break out of the beachhead. Likewise, at Gallipoli in 1915, repeated failures to move inland saw allied forces suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties only to eventually withdraw.
As a historian who is fond of China, I can only hope that these prototypes will remain just that and this will join the list of other forgotten moments in world history. If not, then the conflicts we have seen since the cold war and even those of the past few years may look minor in comparison to what could be unleashed as a result of an invasion of Taiwan.
Matthew Heaslip is a Visiting Fellow at the Royal Navy’s Strategic Studies Centre.
Whether you’re an avid runner or frequently go to the gym, many fitness enthusiasts find they eventually get stuck in a routine – logging the same miles or doing the same workout over and over again.
What if there were a way to challenge both endurance and strength at once with an effective, varied training routine?
Welcome to Hyrox – the increasingly popular fitness race that blends endurance running and strength. Designed for everyday athletes and elite competitors alike, Hyrox offers an accessible yet competitive race format.
By focusing on functional fitness, this workout provides a structured way for people to push their limits while training for a clear goal. It also comes with many physiological benefits regardless of your skill level – including strength, endurance and power.
Athletes run 8km in total, but after each kilometre they must complete a functional fitness exercise. In a Hyrox race, the first exercise is 1,000m on a ski ergometer, followed by a 50m sled push, a 50m sled pull, 80m of burpee broad jumps, a 1,000m row, a 200m farmer’s carry, 100m walking sandbag lunges – finishing with 100 wall balls.
A Hyrox race can be competed individually, in pairs, or in a team of four done in a relay-format. The difficulty of the race depends on your skill level. Athletes in the pro division work with heavier weights than the open division. Those competing as a pair split the stations but run together – adding teamwork to the race.
The average finish time of a Hyrox race is 90 minutes – though this can vary depending on a person’s age, gender and fitness level. Elite racers will aim for a sub-60 time – with current world records set at around 50 minutes.
A race of this duration and intensity puts serious physiological stress on the body – which requires a good level of overall fitness.
Transitioning between runs and exercises causes the body to shift between different energy systems during Hyrox. The aerobic system uses oxygen to steadily fuel the muscles over a period of time. This is essential for the running segments. The anaerobic system, on the other hand, provides short bursts of energy without needing oxygen. This is crucial for the high-intensity exercise portions.
The adrenaline and intensity of the race also means your endurance, explosive power and strength are put to the test simultaneously. Without adequate training and a race plan, this could leave you feeling fatigued towards the end of the race, which can affect your coordination and power.
Hyrox training
Because Hyrox is a new competition format, research on its training benefits is limited. But some early findings suggest that a successful race performance is linked to the amount of training a person puts in ahead of competition and their overall fitness levels. This aligns with what we know about endurance and strength-based training.
The combination of running and intense exercises over a long duration challenges the body’s ability to use oxygen efficiently. Training for Hyrox can lead to improvements in the aerobic capacity or maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂ max), a measure of aerobic fitness.
An improvement in VO₂max means your body can use oxygen more efficiently, allowing you to sustain higher intensities of exercise for longer periods of time. This improves endurance, helps you maintain speed throughout the race and contributes to overall cardiovascular health.
Training for Hyrox requires a balanced approach of running, strength training and Hyrox-specific workouts. This training strategy is known as concurrent training. Research shows concurrent training has benefits for strength, muscular health and cardio-respiratory fitness in people of all ages.
Regular long runs of 40-60 minutes at a low intensity help improve aerobic capacity as well. This allows your body to use oxygen more efficiently for sustained effort. Meanwhile, high-intensity interval runs – such as repeatedly running 400m to 1km with short rest periods of 30-60 seconds – improves your body’s anaerobic threshold. This means you can sustain higher intensities of exercise for longer before fatigue sets in.
The functional stations require full-body strength and muscular endurance, which will be built up gradually as you train for a race. Once you’re more familiar with these exercises, you can begin practising them under fatigue. This is essential for both performance during a race and for preventing injuries.
To maximise performance, a typical weekly training plan should prioritise endurance training over strength training to ensure you are well-prepared to finish a Hyrox race. For the best results, this structured approach should be followed for at least six weeks.
Even without signing up for a race, Hyrox training can give you fitness benefits. You can modify the exercises and how much you run depending on your fitness level.
An all-round Hyrox programme does not just improve functional fitness – it pushes athletes to new limits with a clear, goal-oriented training approach. Whether you’re an elite racer or just looking for a new fitness challenge, Hyrox offers a unique test of endurance and strength.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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