Up to one-third of all new asthma cases each year are attributed to the harmful air pollutants that are emitted by gas-powered automobiles.
To address this, our recent study has found that replacing around half of all gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles could be sufficient to minimize childhood asthma cases linked to pollution from vehicle exhausts.
As researchers studying the intersection of transportation, climate change and public health, we wanted to understand whether electric vehicle sales were having any impact on human health. Given the growing electric vehicle market in the United States, we investigated the impact this growth is having on population health.
Numerous studies have shown that exposure to air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, which are emitted from the tailpipe of gas-powered automobiles when they burn fossil fuels, is linked with an increased risk of developing asthma. Our study builds on this by examining the number of gas-powered and electric vehicles on the road, and the number of new childhood asthma cases annually.
Numerous studies have found a link between gas-powered automobiles and increased asthma risk. (Shutterstock)
Examining vehicle sales
We used publicly available data on childhood asthma from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then, we built a burden-of-disease model to isolate new cases of childhood asthma that were linked to traffic-related air pollution. We included data collected between 2013 and 2019 from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
We found that for every 1,000 new gas-powered vehicles sold, there was one new case of childhood asthma. Our research revealed that replacing approximately 21 per cent of these sales with electric vehicles appears to be sufficient to halt rising asthma rates caused by new vehicle sales. However, this number varied depending on the state and various factors — such as population density and the number of existing gas-powered vehicles on the road.
For instance, in some states, replacing just seven per cent of gas car sales with electric vehicles might be enough to halt rising asthma rates caused by new vehicle sales. But in other states, 42 per cent of new car sales had to be electric vehicles in order to have any impact.
States with a higher population density and a larger proportion of older, gas-powered vehicles on the road would likely see the greatest health gains from switching to electric vehicles.
Our findings indicate there’s already a measurable public health benefit being seen in the U.S. from the increase of electric vehicles on the road. This impact would be profound in states with a zero-emission vehicle program, because 63 per cent of all new electric vehicles were sold in states with these mandates between 2013 and 2019.
In 2021 (at the time of this study), 10 American states had rules promoting electric vehicles, including: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Our findings underscore the urgent need for policies that accelerate the replacement of older, fossil-fuel powered vehicles with electric vehicles. It will also be important for policymakers to find ways of making electric vehicles more accessible for lower-income households, as they’re disproportionately affected by traffic-related air pollution.
Not the only solution
We don’t want readers to assume that putting more electric vehicles on the road is the only solution for improving children’s health.
First, it’s important to note that a reduction in childhood asthma rates only manifests when electric vehicles are sold as replacements for gas-powered vehicles. This means that when people buy an electric vehicle as a second car, it won’t be linked to the same health benefits.
Second, electric vehicles — as with any other vehicle — still contribute to air pollution emissions in other ways. This is why our research doesn’t point towards completely replacing all gas-powered automobiles with electric vehicles for the sake of public health.
Replacing half of gas-powered cars with electric vehicles appears to minimize childhood asthma caused by traffic-related air pollution. (Shutterstock)
While a 36-77 per cent fleet share of electric vehicles should minimize the asthma burden due to reducing the amount of nitrogen dioxide emitted from gas-powered automobiles, this doesn’t eliminate all the pollutants that are produced by vehicles.
For example, particulate matter from brake wear, tire wear and road dust are all linked with adverse health impacts — such as respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses. The actual reduction in pollution also depends on driving behaviours, as plug-in hybrids can operate on both gas and electricity.
Alternative forms of transportation are still important for reducing the total number of cars on the road and ultimately improving public health.
For electric vehicles to be truly beneficial, it’s also important to ensure the electricity needed to charge their batteries comes from clean sources. If the electricity comes from coal or other fossil-fuel-based sources, then we’re just moving the pollution from the urban centres to communities living near power plants.
The bottom line is that while electric vehicles are needed to move away from fossil fuel-based vehicles, they aren’t the whole solution. We need to promote and invest more in public transit and biking infrastructure to improve air quality and public health.
This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, RGPIN-2019-07042) and the Data Sciences Institute at the University of Toronto (grant no. DSIDSFY3R1P22).
Meredith Franklin received funding from NSCERC for this research.
Steve Easterbrook received funding from NSCERC and UofT DSI for this research.
A well-known saying in politics is to never let a good crisis go to waste. The governing Liberals have embraced this idea, calling a snap election for April 28. Their decision came amid United States President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods and threats of annexation.
This moment presents a rare opportunity for Canadian Conservatives to rethink their approach. They can do this by tapping into their own party’s history of opposing American domination over Canada.
Canadians are often presented as mild-mannered patriots. But Trump’s mockery of Canadian sovereignty has upended that perception.
A recent Angus Reid poll found a surge in national pride. The percentage of Canadians who were “very proud” to be Canadian jumped from 34 to 44. At hockey games, Canadians are booing the American national anthem. And in grocery stores, shoppers are boycotting American products in favour of domestic goods.
Robert Borden’s 1911 election win, for example, was fuelled by nationalist opposition to free trade with the U.S. Borden’s motto, evoking MacDonald, was: “Keep Canada for the Canadians.”
Conservatives were also the party of Britishness. They supported the monarchy, the Red Ensign flag featuring the Union Jack and a strong central government. In contrast, the Liberals were the party of continentalism, hoping to achieve further economic and cultural integration with the U.S.
This dynamic reversed in the 1980s with the rise of neoliberalism. During the 1988 election, the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney, not John Turner’s Liberals, favoured free trade. The Liberal campaign even ran a memorable ad warning that free trade would erase the Canadian-U.S. border.
Since then, Canadian Conservatives have often been accused of wanting to “Americanize” Canada. Conservatives favour an elected Senate modelled on its U.S. equivalent. Economically, they mirror the market fundamentalism of American Republicans.
On foreign policy matters, Conservatives also align closely with American interests. When Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it was met with strong criticism by opposition leader Stephen Harper.
Canadian uniqueness
Trump’s attack on Canadian sovereignty creates a chance for Canadian conservatism to return to its nationalist roots. Classical Canadian Tory thinkers — from George Grant to Donald Creighton, John Farthing and W. L. Morton — espoused a strong strain of anti-Americanism that animated all of their work. Indeed, it was this defence of Canadian uniqueness that defined their conservatism.
These pro-Canada sentiments can’t just come from the leader. Nor should they be a short-term election strategy — they must represent a long-term vision.
The current crisis is an opportunity for the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement in Canada to reorient their ideology away from the Americanization of Canada. They can best do this by drawing from the tradition of British-style Toryism that defined the conservative ideology for the first century of Canadian nationhood.
Canadians are hungry for a party that celebrates Canadian patriotism and that builds up, rather than tears down, Canada’s heritage. They want a party that stands up to the American bully and strengthens national security by properly funding the country’s military.
Dialing it down
That means Poilievre must tone down his libertarian instincts in favour of the national collective good. Uninspiring commitments like increasing the contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts doesn’t match the required urgency. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are worried they won’t have a job or the money to contribute to a tax-free savings account due to this trade war.
Market capitalism and the free flow of goods and people across borders creates wealth, but it also makes Canada more economically dependent on America.
Defunding the CBC might make good economic sense. However, it may also weaken Canadians’ sense of national identity and drive them further into the grips of American cultural influence.
Poilievre, and the conservative movement more broadly, should consider rekindling some of the anti-Americanism that has long been a key component of Canadian conservatism. Doing so might allow his party to seize upon Canadians’ renewed sense of patriotism and result in a Conservative win on April 28.
There might be a few Trump-loving conservatives alienated by this approach. But there are far more moderate voters to be gained by fighting for Canada under a truly conservative banner.
As the saying goes, don’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Charlie Buck receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The current socio-political environment has created a context where conspiracy narratives about COVID-19, vaccines, election fraud and other misinformation appear to be flourishing everywhere.(Shutterstock)
If you’re in a relationship with someone who believes in a conspiracy theory, you might find yourself feeling like you don’t know the person you’re in a relationship with anymore. And you might be thinking about whether things will get better or wondering if you should leave them.
The World Health Organization has declared we are living in an infodemic, where misinformation is spreading like an infectious disease. A Leger opinion poll conducted in November 2023 found that nearly 80 per cent of Canadian respondents and almost 85 per cent of Americans believed at least one conspiracy theory.
While older adults often struggle to detect online misinformation, the poll found people between the ages of 18 and 34 were also likely to believe some conspiracies. Recent research has also found youth aged 13-17 are more susceptible to misinformation than adults.
The current socio-political environment has created a context where conspiracy narratives about COVID-19, vaccines, election fraud and other misinformation appear to be flourishing everywhere. However, there are steps you can take if you see your partner going down a conspiratorial rabbit hole.
No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.
Conspiracy theories refer to beliefs relating to secret plots orchestrated by groups who are considered to hold power and have bad intentions. Misinformation refers to information that contradicts the best expert evidence available at the time. Lastly, political polarization describes ideological conflict between two (or more) opposing groups. Political polarization can create antipathy and prejudice among groups that don’t agree with one another.
One of the authors of this article, Kara Fletcher, is a couples and family therapist. In her practice, she has noticed an increase in clients sharing their confusion and hopelessness at their partner’s gradual adoption of conspiracy theories and misinformation. They’ve shared that their partners’ viewpoints initially became more conservative and then escalated into believing misinformation and conspiracy theories over time.
Clients have reported that their romantic partner has started to follow movements like QAnon, a far-right American political conspiracy theory. Or, more insidious and less obvious initially, their partners have started to consume podcasts like Infowars, Joe Rogan’s podcast or conservative websites like the Daily Wire. These podcasts and news sites have all come under scrutiny for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Our research team has undertaken multiple projects to better understand the impact of misinformation and conspiracy theories on couple well-being. While existing research is slim, there is some evidence of relationship disruption and harm.
We are currently conducting a scoping review of studies assessing the impact of QAnon involvement on interpersonal relationships. Participants in one research study described QAnon as a “malignant force in their relationship” which caused distance and distress. Participants however, reported a desire to understand their loved one and attempt to heal the relationship.
Similarly, emerging research also indicates that loved ones experienced emotional distress and a negative impact on their relationship since their “QPerson” started following the beliefs of QAnon. Anecdotally, the Reddit forum QAnonCasualties has more than 280,000 members.
A Leger opinion poll conducted in November 2023 found that nearly 80 per cent of Canadian respondents believed at least one conspiracy theory. (Shutterstock)
What you can do
So, what can you do if you just don’t recognize your romantic partner anymore? If this sounds like a familiar experience for you, or someone you love, here are a few tips to try:
Keep your feet on the grass. Stay connected to family and friends. Living with or dating someone who espouses conspiracy beliefs and misinformation can be confusing and disorienting. You may start to question your own belief system when your partner is so convinced of theirs. Maintain your social supports and relationships outside of your romantic relationship. This will help keep you connected with other viewpoints and ideas and ground you.
Model and maintain a healthy social media and news diet. If your partner is only listening to far-right news sources, put on the radio, leave a newspaper on the table. Expose them gently to a wide range of ideas, while maintaining your own exposure to legitimate news sources.
Try not to shame and blame. Emotional arguments do not work and may cause the opposite intended effect. Your partner may feel that you are unsupportive and judgmental and not understand your well-intentioned concern. Individuals who feel judged for their beliefs may double down on adherence to those beliefs while under pressure.
Prevention. Where possible, encourage and practise critical thinking skills. One study found that teaching critical thinking to college students for a period of three months lowered students’ beliefs in conspiracy theories. Teaching critical thinking appears to be the best inoculation against adopting conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Get support if needed. You may love your partner deeply but find navigating this situation alone to be too much. You can speak to a therapist or connect with supports such as the Evolve Program and Life After Hate.
As our research develops, we hope to offer support that will bring couples with these experiences together to find solutions for their divergent belief systems and experiences.
Kara Fletcher receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation.
Carlos Alberto Rosas-Jiménez and Jiaxing Li 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.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Marshia Akbar, Director of the BMO Newcomer Workforce Integration Lab and Research Lead on Labour Migration at the CERC Migration and Integration Program at TMU, Toronto Metropolitan University
While gender wage gaps affect all women, they are particularly pronounced for those from marginalized communities. A 2015 United Nations Human Rights report raised concerns about “the persisting inequalities between women and men” in Canada, highlighting the gender pay gap and its disproportionate impact on low-income, racialized and Indigenous women.
Historical data reflects the persistence of these inequalities. The 2001and 2016 censuses reveal that labour market inequalities in Canada have remained both gendered and racialized over the past two decades.
Racialized immigrant women are among the most disadvantaged groups in Canada’s labour force. They experience higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than racialized men, non-racialized men and non-racialized women, regardless of whether they are immigrants or Canadian-born.
Building on this evidence, my recent analysis of the 2021 census further illustrates the ongoing disparities racialized immigrant women face in the Canadian labour market — even among those with university education.
Data from 2021 highlights these disparities. Racialized immigrant women aged 25 to 54 had the lowest labour force participation and employment rates, and the highest unemployment rates.
The labour force participation rate of racialized immigrant women was 77 per cent, the lowest among all immigrant groups. Their employment rate was 68 per cent, significantly lower than that of racialized immigrant men (82 per cent) and non-racialized immigrant women (74 per cent).
Additionally, their unemployment rate reached 12 per cent, exceeding racialized immigrant men by seven percentage points and non-racialized immigrant women by three percentage points.
In contrast, Canadian-born women face fewer employment disparities between racialized and non-racialized groups. This suggests that labour market barriers are particularly harsh for immigrant women of colour.
Wage gaps reflect the triple disadvantage
Wage disparities in Canada vary significantly across demographic lines, with immigrant women facing the greatest disadvantages.
In 2020, racialized immigrant women aged 15 and over had the lowest median employment income of $30,400. Their earnings lagged behind racialized immigrant men, and non-racialized immigrant men and women.
While higher education improves earnings, it does not eliminate these disparities.
University-educated racialized immigrant women earned an average of $41,200 in 2020, compared to $57,200 for their male counterparts — a gender wage gap of 28 per cent.
Additionally, they earned 19 per cent less than non-racialized immigrant women ($50,800) and 32 per cent less than non-racialized Canadian-born women ($60,400). This placed them at the bottom of the earnings hierarchy.
These figures indicate that educational attainment alone is not enough to overcome the structural barriers that limit economic opportunities for racialized immigrant women. More deliberate actions are needed.
The road ahead
Despite initiatives like the Racialized Newcomer Women Pilot, which the federal government launched in 2018 to support career advancement for racialized newcomer women, employment and wage disparities persist.
To address these challenges, future research should adopt a problem-solving approach to address the root causes. Simultaneously, a comprehensive policy response is needed to tackle the systemic barriers in the labour market.
Targeted solutions are needed to help racialized immigrant women. Strengthening credential recognition, for instance, can help employers assess transferable skills across countries. Implementing equitable hiring practices and workplace integration policies are also essential.
Most importantly, it’s crucial to recognize that ensuring equitable access to meaningful employment is not only vital for advancing gender and racial equity, but also essential for unlocking Canada’s full economic potential.
Marshia Akbar receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Even small items, such as earrings or keys, can become lodged in the body.Anzay/ Shutterstock
A man in Florida recently visited a Tiffany & Co jewellery store posing as a buyer for a professional US athlete. While viewing the items, together worth well over £1 million, the thief tried to grab them and run from the store.
The ensuing struggle saw one diamond ring get dropped – but the thief still made off with two pairs of diamond earrings valued at £600,000. In a bid to avoid arrest, the suspect consumed a different kind of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” – swallowing the jewellery. After he was later taken into custody some 340 miles away, he was quoted as saying: “Am I going to be charged for what is in my stomach?”
This certainly isn’t the first time a thief has hoped that swallowing stolen valuables would help them get away with their crime. One of the UK’s most notorious jewel thieves, whose exploits were captured in the ITV series Joan, also consumed jewels in order to steal them.
But while in this recent instance the stolen jewels were recovered after naturally passing through the thief’s body, this isn’t always the case when things are swallowed that shouldn’t be. Foreign body ingestion, as it’s called, accounts for approximately 1,500 deaths per year in the US alone.
Small items, such as earrings, aren’t too difficult for the body to pass if swallowed accidentally or on purpose. This is because the oesophagus, which carries food to the stomach, is up to 3cm in diameter.
But if objects are too large and get stuck in the oesophagus, they can tear and perforate it. A tear to the oesophagus requires immediate medical intervention – without emergency care, this tear has a mortality rate of up to 40%.
The stomach, a J-shaped sac, has a much larger diameter than the oesophagus. It then connects to the small intestines and subsequently the large intestines. But because of the stomach’s unique shape and the way it tightly narrows as it joins the small intestines, objects can easily get lodged in this join.
In one case study, doctors in Iran removed more than 450 metallic items from a man’s stomach – including screws, keys, nuts and other metal parts. These objects weren’t able to pass naturally due to the narrowing of the digestive tract – subsequently building up in the stomach, leading to abdominal pains and digestive issues in the patient that required immediate surgery.
Just as problematic are prisoners who swallow mobile phones, as these are too large to progress beyond the stomach, so they get stuck. The only way to remove the phone in these instances is by endoscopy or surgery – which is what had to happen when a prisoner in India swallowed four mobile phones.
If the phone isn’t removed, the stomach’s acid may dissolve many of the phone’s components. This could potentially expose its battery, which contains chemicals that can burn the stomach lining or cause it to rupture.
In one case study, a diamond earring got lodged inside a patient and caused appendicitis. AKpicartist/ Shutterstock
Should an item manage to pass through the stomach, it then has to move through 12 feet of small intestines before entering the large intestines. The appendix is located where these intestines meet – and any foreign objects that enter this tube are unlikely to get back out the way they came. So, this is another site where items can easily become stuck, causing infection and the need for emergency surgical removal.
In one rare case, a diamond earring caused appendicitis in a person who had swallowed it by accident. There are also cases of this happening after screws, stones and pins became lodged in the appendix.
The large intestines, where faeces begin to form, gradually begin to narrow in diameter, especially near the rectum. This makes it even more likely that the intestinal wall may be perforated by foreign objects – particularly sharp things such as the post of an earring or even packets of smuggled drugs.
Perforation of the bowel anywhere through the gastrointestinal tract is a surgical emergency, as it means the contents of the tract – which includes billions of bacteria – can leak into the membrane that lines your pelvis and abdomen. This can cause serious and often fatal infections such as peritonitis and sepsis, which can have mortality rates of almost 50%.
Spare a thought
Putting anything that isn’t food or drink into your body carries a significant risk of getting stuck, tearing through delicate walls of the digestive tract, or reacting with the lining in a way that damages your intestines.
As ever in these cases, spare a thought for the poor person who has to “check through what came out” – or the person who had to clean the recovered jewellery.
The good news for thieves who are desperate enough to try this route of “acquisition” is that valuable metals such as gold, silver and many of the precious stones embedded in them don’t change when touched by stomach acid.
However, it’s hard to say whether these particular Tiffany earrings will go up or down in value, given the journey they’ve endured.
Adam Taylor 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 Simon Morrison, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Music Journalism, University of Chester
When US rock’n’roll arrived in the UK in the mid-1950s, there were few places for British teenagers to dance to this exciting new genre. But by the early 1960s, dance venues specifically aimed at teenagers began to open in towns and cities.
Unlike the sometimes grand and opulent ballrooms that had been the stomping grounds of their parents, the new teen-oriented discotheques of the 1960s tended to be located in altogether contrasting spaces, in terms of architecture and atmosphere.
Several of these new youth nightclubs were in cellars of somewhat dilapidated buildings. They were often unlicensed and aimed at teenagers younger than the legal drinking age.
Sometimes described as “coffee dance clubs” or “continental style”, the novelty of these new spaces was reflected an the uncertainty of how to describe them. The dancing was predominantly fuelled by recorded music. This allowed British teenagers, many of them identifying as mods (the stylish youth subculture that flourished in the early to mid 1960s) to hear electrifying rhythm and blues artists from America.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
In the basement
Being based underground enhanced the atmosphere in the clubs. Attendees were simultaneously part of an underground movement and also literally hidden from view from the adult world.
For a few years between 1963 and 1966, subterranean hedonism existed under the surface – and the mod club scene flourished. The architecture of these spaces provided distinctive environments for the young dancers which led to notably visceral experiences. These were hot, dimly lit, crowded, smoke and sweat-filled spaces where the music ricocheted off surfaces and fed directly back into the dancing bodies.
The subterranean location sometimes emphasised in the choice of name for these clubs – Cavern, Dug Out, Dungeon, Catacombs, Heaven and Hell.
The Sinking Ship club in Stockport was located in a cave carved out of red sandstone rocks. The condensation that dripped back on to the dancers was infused with red mineral deposits, leaving a particularly vibrant sensory memory of an all-night dance session.
At the tail end of the mod club era, in 1966 US R&B stars Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto released the track In the Basement – Part 1. Although the song refers to a house party rather than a nightclub, it captured the zeitgeist of the mid 1960s mod dance era, and the locations in which it flourished. DeSanto, in particular, was hugely popular with the mod crowd.
Alongside the trend for naming the clubs in reference to their below-ground location, another tendency was for clubs to be named with reference to places outside of the UK, giving a sense of escapism and glamour.
This was often in the form of words of Latin origin, such as La Discotheque, The Bodega and El Partido. This reference to Europe chimed with the mod passion for continental European style. It was also arguably a portent of what was to come as these locations transformed.
Let there be light
The latter part of the 20th century finally brought club culture into the light. A glorious confluence of musical, meteorological and pharmaceutical effects combined to form, it might be argued, the last great “spectacular” subculture.
In the 1980s, raw, electronic beats filtered out of American cities such as Chicago and Detroit and travelled across the Atlantic, first in trickles then ultimately in waves, consuming willing European DJs.
In Ibiza, for instance, Argentinian Alfredo Fiorito (having fled the restrictions of the junta in his native Argentina), played Chicago house and Detroit techno along with his usual Euro pop and electronica. His canvas was the dance floor of the nightclub Amnesia, where he deejayed through the night and into morning. It was not so much that his deejaying blew the roof off the place – more that Amnesia had no roof in the first place.
In the sunshine, vitamin D mingled and reacted to the rather less natural flow of drug E around the body. MDMA or ecstasy and shortened to E, presented another intriguing combination – this time of German engineering and American appropriation. For users, it became the perfect pharmaceutical filter to enjoy house music through.
Brits holidaying on Ibiza in 1987 experienced something of an epiphany and took the party drug culture back to the UK. Back home, parties erupted like magical crops with illegal raves in farms and fields around the M25 orbital motorway.
Events like Sunrise, Energy and Biology eschewed nightclubs completely, preferring to set up in the great outdoors. Ravers found that partying in the sunshine took them back to something primal and pagan. They celebrated in, and with, nature in a reconstituted Shakespearean Arden, powered by the sun from above and the energy from the ground beneath.
In this way, the story of club culture emerged from the cellars and basements of a subterranean, nocturnal world and found its way into the light.
The repercussions of this transatlantic drift, this musical flow of beats and ideas, then spread out further like sonic waves across the planet. We can see traces in festivals like the Notting Hill Carnival. We can further trace that beat as it broke out of the weekend and then the UK completely – a neo-hippy trail taking in the free party scene across Europe, and particularly eastern Europe, and on, to the trance scene in Goa and Thailand’s full-moon parties.
In Ibiza, new laws and noise regulations means that they have literally been able to put the roof back on, but elsewhere the spirit of raves and rays, of disco al fresco, seems unstoppable.
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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University
In a carefully choreographed address from the White House Rose Garden, US president Donald Trump announced a massive package of trade tariffs. These include 20% on imports from the European Union, 24% on those from Japan, 27% for India, and 34% for China. The UK gets the lowest rate, at 10%.
A tariff is a tax on imports, paid by producers and consumers of the importing country.
US producers will pay more for their inputs – the things they need to produce their goods – from the rest of the world. US consumers will pay more for foreign products. But they will also pay more for US-made goods, because production costs will increase, and US producers will face higher demand from consumers seeking to substitute imports.
So what is the Trump administration trying to achieve?
The official goal is to have a tax that is sufficiently high to reduce the trade imbalance between the US and the rest of the
world. Every month, the US imports goods and services worth tens of billions of US dollars more than those it sells to other countries.
Since Donald Trump returned to office, US firms have anticipated future tariffs by importing more. This has increased this deficit to a record-high of US$131 billion (£99.7 billion) in January, twice as large as it was only a year ago.
The way the US trade deficit works is simple. US consumers buy cheap products from other countries in exchange for printing money at little cost. The trick is that the rest of the world buys US currency as a reserve of value, or to invest in US assets. This seems like the dream deal. Americans get richer and the country is flooded with investment, making it the technological centre of the world. This in turn keeps the dollar strong.
But there is a counterpoint, increasingly prevalent in the circles that surround the US president. This dream deal is bad for US manufacturing and creates a dependency on foreign producers and investors. Crucially, it depends on the US remaining the ultimate currency in perpetuity.
So, will Trump’s plan help him achieve his goal of reducing US imports relative to exports? Tariffs will not increase exports. But by making foreign products more expensive, they can massively decrease imports.
In practice, this is only sustainable if the US wants to become permanently poorer. If the US economy becomes weak enough that the US dollar is not a desirable investment, it could become the factory of the world and sell cheap products, while not being able to afford what foreigners produce. This was China’s development strategy in the mid-2000s.
Time to choose a response
Whether this is what US citizens want to achieve is a question for them. As for the rest of the world, the time has come to decide how to react.
The reasonable take, favoured by British prime minister Keir Starmer, is this: if tariffs are bad, adding more in retaliation will not be better.
The UK is therefore poised not to retaliate, but to seek a trade deal with the US instead and to give Trump enough rope to climb down.
Removing bilateral trade barriers would be good for both economies. But it would also send a message that the way to obtain concessions from the UK is to bully it. The US and everyone else will learn the lesson, and act accordingly in future.
A deal will also end the embryonic tax collected since April 2020 on the revenues of tech giants like Amazon, Google and Meta. Given their increasing importance, such a de facto tax exemption would mean ever-increasing rates on British workers and businesses.
The tit-for-tat path, taken by the European Commission, is to retaliate and hope that it will force the US to climb down.
As happened during Trump’s first administration, the EU will tax a chosen subset of US products like Harley Davidson motorbikes and bourbon. But the goal is to do much more and to use the size of the EU’s single market to attack the driving force of US economic growth: its tech giants.
The boldest tool is the new “anti-coercion instrument”, developed by the European Commission in anticipation of a second Trump mandate. This is a very slow but potentially devastating legislative process that goes as far as allowing the suspension of intellectual property rights for companies based in countries that attempt to coerce member states through economic warfare. What this could mean, in effect, is the EU choosing not to enforce international laws protecting the intellectual property of American firms.
No password required. EU retaliation could see US tech firms powerless to fight back against piracy. wisely/Shutterstock
In essence, the EU would say: if you do not respect the international order, from the rules of trade to international law and climate agreements, we do not respect your rules either. In practice, no one within the EU would be sued for pirating a Netflix show, or for creating a free clone of US software or apps, until the US returns to a more cooperative pattern of behaviour.
The obvious problem with this approach is what to do if the US does not embrace more cooperative behaviour.
This may lead to the most dramatic path – a reorganisation of the world order that more or less avoids the US. Chinese media have reported, for instance, that China is trying to work with US allies Korea and Japan to overcome global tariffs.
A sort of “coalition of the willing” with a larger group of countries to recreate global cooperation seems far-fetched today. But it would end the US dollar dominance, allowing the country to balance its trade deficit. It would also take the world to uncharted economic and political territories.
Renaud Foucart 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 Rosalind Malcolm, Professor of Environmental Law, Director of Environmental Regulatory Research Group (ERRG), University of Surrey
The Wye is perhaps the most extreme example, but the nearby River Severn, the UK’s longest river, is also at risk, along with rivers in places such as Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Yorkshire.
In the land that feeds into these rivers, millions of chickens are being reared in intensive units to supply supermarkets with cheap meat and eggs. But all those chickens produce vast amounts of manure which can end up in the rivers.
This floods the river with excess nutrients causing algal blooms to flourish. The algae blocks out sunlight and consumes oxygen, which kills other creatures in the water. For instance the number of Atlantic salmon passing through the River Wye each year has plummeted from 50,000 in the 1960s to less than 3,000.
The problems caused by chicken farming have led to legal action against US food company Cargill and its subsidiary Avara Foods (both firms deny the allegations). Meanwhile food outlets including Nando’s have denied sourcing their products from polluting farms.
Measures to deal with excess nutrients have led to so-called nutrient neutrality policies. These prevent new developments that would cause a net increase in nutrients. But the knock-on effect is that development (including housebuilding) may be blocked.
Much of the River Wye flows through the English county of Herefordshire. There, the council, exasperated by the failure of these plans to reverse the decline, took the unusual step of controlling the pollution through planning laws.
Its Minerals and Waste Local Plan declared that any new chicken farms must demonstrate that the manure would be properly managed and the project would overall be nutrient neutral. That would form part of an environmental impact assessment during the planning process.
This was unusual because agricultural activities are not usually subject to planning control and what you do on your farm is generally regulated by non-planning statutory regimes. So, the step taken by Herefordshire Council was unusual and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) challenged it in court.
What was also new, was the categorisation of manure as “waste”.
Is manure ‘waste’?
Agriculture mainly gets a pass on waste controls. Faecal matter (including chicken manure) is not treated as waste in law as long as it does not harm the environment or endanger human health, even though it is not the farmers’ primary product. A farmer breeds chickens for meat and eggs but chickens also produce manure. But that manure can still be useful as a fertiliser, for energy or as compost. So far so good. The problem comes when that by-product is not managed carefully and it ends up polluting rivers.
So should it be defined as waste – and therefore subject to strict controls – or treated as a valuable byproduct and managed as a commodity just like the eggs?
The answer is: it depends. Case law indicates that the test for whether the manure would be waste is whether it can harm the environment.
In the High Court case, the NFU argued that agricultural activities should not be subject to planning controls and that manure should not be treated as “waste”. In effect its argument was that the economic endeavours of farmers should outweigh the additional environmental protections introduced by the council.
The judge did not agree with the NFU. She said that chicken manure could indeed be waste and the council could control it through the planning regime.
Symbolic slurry
This is a symbolic battle between those tricky pillars of sustainable development: economy, society and environment.
In any planning case, the elements need to be balanced and one will dominate over the others. Housing for people? Industrial development for economic growth? Industrial farming for (cheap) food? Protecting the river and its ecosystem from pollution? Every decision made represents a trade-off.
As the courts move to prioritise protecting the environment, the UK government is favouring economic growth. Its Planning and Infrastructure Bill plans to replace individual environmental impact assessments with broad based “environmental delivery plans” produced by a government body (not the developer) but funded by developers.
These delivery plans will set out conservation measures addressing environmental impacts of development. They might focus on protected species or habitats or on issues like nutrient neutrality.
But there is no shortage of plans already in the government armoury. Environmental Improvement Plans were set up by a previous government. Among these, the Wyescapes landscape recovery project is aimed at developing “sustainable, future-proof business models working with nature along the floodplain”. The River Wye nutrient management plan aims to halt nutrient pollution. The River Wye action plan aims to stop the decline of the river system by making the catchment a pilot for transforming how manure is managed.
However, as the judge in the NFU v Herefordshire Council case said, all the evidence demonstrates that these plans have so far failed to stop the decline. This left the council to implement drastic and immediate action.
The NFU is considering an appeal. But the council’s win at the high court may be in vain when government proposals outlaw the requirement for individual environmental impact assessments.
It remains to be seen how effective the new government ideas on protecting the environment will be. For now, it appears that anything that blocks development is not a government priority.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Rosalind Malcolm 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 Linda Yueh, Fellow in Economics/Adjunct Professor of Economics, University of Oxford
Donald Trump has always talked about how much he likes tariffs. And on April 2 2025, he showed that he meant it. For the president it was “liberation day”, but for his fellow world leaders it was a tense wait to see what percentage figure would be attached to their country’s vital exports.
Those tariff rates ranged from 10% for the UK to 49% for Cambodia, charges which Trump says will raise trillions of dollars for the US economy and “make America wealthy again”.
“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered,” he said, before unveiling the tariffs which will cause headaches for business leaders and politicians across the world. We asked Linda Yueh, an economist at the University of Oxford, to answer some of the most pressing questions the tariffs pose.
What is Trump thinking?
Economically speaking, the president of the US says he wants to make international trade fairer – by equalising tariffs. He said that if countries want these “reciprocal tariffs” removed (on top of the 10% baseline tariff on all US imports), then they also need to remove non-tariff barriers, such as opening more of their markets to US companies.
As with his first administration, he also wants companies to bring production and manufacturing jobs back to the US. Basically, he views current international trade as unfair and is using tariffs in a way that’s unprecedented in modern times to try to level the playing field.
Why such a broad range of tariffs?
The formula used by the White House to calculate the various tariff rates is apparently based on the trade balance – what each country sells and buys from the US. The Trump administration views a trade surplus (where the US buys more than it sells) as a proxy for unfair trade, so is imposing “reciprocal tariffs” to retaliate.
And some countries do indeed levy higher tariffs than the US. For instance, some developing countries do so in accordance with their level of development. But tariffs are generally governed by the World Trade Organisation, so that’s where countries would normally go to resolve trade disputes.
But because no tariff is set below 10%, there will be tariffs levied even on countries with whom the US runs a trade surplus (those which do more buying from the US than selling). These include the Netherlands, Australia and Brazil.
Over 100 countries will have tariffs imposed, including small countries like Fiji (32%) and poor economies like Haiti (10%). Those are also likely to be the ones which will find it most challenging to get into the queue to negotiate a lower tariff any time soon.
What options do countries have in terms of their response?
The EU (20%) has said it will retaliate, while the UK (10%) says it will keep talking though all the options on the table. Trump has said he is open to negotiations before the baseline tariffs are imposed on April 5, and the extra reciprocal tariffs land on April 9.
Engaging in a tit-for-tat trade war is economically damaging – as the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) set out in its latest assessment of the UK economy. Each government will take its own view on the appropriate approach, but with the knowledge that it’s highly unlikely that everyone will be able to negotiate a better deal conclusively within a week.
Will there be a recession?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Trump’s tariffs could reduce global economic growth by 0.5% through next year, which is significant. But, it also believes that a global recession is not on the horizon.
That said, the economic impact of these tariffs is highly uncertain and unpredictable. The effects will vary from country to country, and a lot will depends upon how long the tariffs are levied for, how other countries respond and how companies manage the tariffs and the uncertainty of trade policy.
And it remains a big gamble for Trump too. For a president who considers himself to be the master of deals, there are risks of rising inflation, falling stock markets and potentially denting the US economy.
Linda Yueh 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 Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin
Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza in March, blaming Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal to extend the ceasefire and free the remaining hostages. Since then, the Israeli military has launched waves of airstrikes on the besieged territory, killing hundreds of Palestinians and forcing many more to evacuate.
Israel now says it is expanding its offensive. In a video statement released on April 2, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israeli military had “shifted gears” in the Gaza Strip, “seizing territory, hitting the terrorists and destroying the infrastructure”. Earlier that day, his defence minister, Israel Katz, had announced that troops would “seize extensive territory” in Gaza for “security zones”.
We asked Scott Lucas, an expert in the Middle East conflict at University College Dublin, to explain the key issues that led to the renewed offensive and what the prospects are for Gaza.
Was a new ground offensive always on the cards, even with the ceasefire in place?
The Netanyahu government’s resumption of the ground offensive in Gaza was almost inevitable once it refused to move from phase one of the ceasefire, which involved the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, to phase two.
A second phase was never going to be agreed by Netanyahu. Beyond his personal opposition to the requisite Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, powerful hard-right ministers in his government had made clear that their acceptance of phase one was conditioned on no phase two and on a return to military operations.
But with no phase two, the requirement for a functioning government in the Strip has been abandoned, even as Hamas remains.
So Israel either had to maintain its “open-ended” war in Gaza of bombing without end, or establish an occupation of at least part of the besieged territory. That suits the hard right and those officials who had always favoured an Israeli military government in the area.
Does Netanyahu care about the legality of what he’s doing?
Netanyahu cares about his political and legal survival. Throughout the 18-month-long Israeli assault, I have said that if Netanyahu stops without achieving his stated goal of “destroying” Hamas and returning the hostages, he faces early elections and his trial on bribery charges.
It is therefore in his interests to hesitate, waver and confuse. That is still true today. So, amid the demands by the hard right, Netanyahu has to maintain his government with the claim that he has established “security” through indefinite occupation.
Can he sell this to the Israeli public?
That’s the big question. At this point, Netanyahu can only be stopped from within Israel, not from outside it.
A portion of the Israeli public will continue to support the war. Some will support occupation in lieu of a war. Some even back the hard-right’s goal of “cleansing” Gaza of its residents.
But others will see this move as Netanyahu abandoning the priority of securing the return of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents most captives’ relatives, fear that the decision to resume the war has put the hostages at possibly grave risk.
In a statement, the group said it was “horrified” to wake up to “the defence minister’s announcement about expanding military operations in Gaza”. “Our highest priority must be an immediate deal to bring ALL hostages back home – the living for rehabilitation and those killed for proper burial – and end this war.”
The problem for Netanyahu is that 70% of Israelis, whatever their position on the war, say that they do not trust his government. Even among voters who support the coalition, only 51% have faith in it, and 36% do not.
Almost 70% of respondents want a return of all the hostages in return for an end to the war. And just over 20% favour a continued assault as the priority.
Where is the Trump White House in all this?
Fully supporting the Netanyahu government. In October, Donald Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call: “Bibi, do what you have to do.” This effectively gave Netanyahu a blank cheque to pursue the destruction of Hamas in Gaza once Trump returned to the White House.
There was a brief interlude when Trump took full credit for the limited truce between Israel and Hamas in January. Through his envoy, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, Trump pressed Netanyahu to accept a deal.
But once phase one of the ceasefire had dissolved, Trump and his officials were going to be fully behind the resumption of Israel’s assault on Hamas, with the highest price to be paid by the Gazan people.
Trump posted a “last warning” to Hamas in early March via his Truth Social platform: “I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”
He added: “Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.”
What about the Arab states?
When Israel renewed airstrikes in mid-March, Saudi Arabia stressed “the urgent need for an immediate cessation of Israeli killings, violence and destruction, as well as the protection of Palestinian civilians from the unjust Israeli war machine.” Jordan denounced the “extremely dangerous step”.
Egypt concentrated on trying to revive the ceasefire process and other states, such as the United Arab Emirates remained silent – a reticence that has continued as the Netanyahu government announced the resumption of the ground offensive.
Even if the Arab states wanted to get involved beyond rhetorical tut-tutting, I am not sure what they can do to check the Israelis.
Resisting occupation would have to be done either through the backing of Hamas’s resistance or through the establishment of an alternative administration. The former is anathema to most Arab states, and there is no prospect of the latter.
Scott Lucas 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 Lucy Crouch, Research Fellow, Institute of Microbiology and Infection, Department of Microbes, Infection and Microbiomes, School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham
The microbial community living within our large intestine is a highly dense and complex ecosystem. While some of these microbes cause illness and disease (such as bacteria and viruses), others are friendlier to us and help keep us in good health.
Researchers have known for years that A muciniphila is associated with good health. One of the important roles it plays in our gut is maintaining the function of our gut barrier. This keeps the bad bugs out while making sure we can still absorb the important nutrients from our diet that keep our cells working as they should. But when there’s an imbalance of A muciniphila in the gut, it can lead to problems with our health.
This unusual bacteria lives in our large intestine and survives off of mucin — the layer of mucus that covers the large intestine’s surface.
Mucin provides a small but important separation between the human cells and microbial cells that call the large intestine home. If this mucus layer is disrupted, microbes can come into direct contact with the human cells. This may result in inflammation as the human cells react to the bacteria – potentially leading to the development of disease, such as inflammatory bowel disease.
Akkermansia muciniphila is a very fussy eater. It only uses the glycoproteins (molecules containing protein and carbohydrates) in mucin as an energy source. But just how this bacteria extracted energy from glycoproteins was a mystery until recently. Research conducted by myself and colleagues discovered that A muciniphila deploys a range of different enzymes that work together in order to unlock the sugar found in mucin.
Using mucin taken from a pig, we analysed both enzyme activity on the surface of cells alongside their genes to understand which enzymes were involved in breaking the glycoproteins in mucin down.
We discovered that A muciniphila uses 66 different enzymes to extract the important energy it needs from the glycoproteins in order to do its important work. We are the first group to describe this process.
Important for health
Studies looking at A muciniphila’s interaction with the immune system in mice have revealed that it calms the immune system down and may prevent obesity and diabetes from developing.
Researchers have highlighted specific peptides (a type of molecule) that it secretes which have this effect on the immune system. Due to its friendly nature and calming effect on the immune system, Akkermansia muciniphila has even been used to develop probiotics.
Researchers have also found that people who have a metabolic disease, such as diabetes or fatty liver disease, have fewer Akkermansia muciniphila in their large intestine. The more lean and athletic you are, the more A muciniphila you have.
Although Akkermansia muciniphila only eats mucus, our diet does still affect it – though indirectly.
Colon-dwelling bacteria such as A muciniphila use the carbohydrates they extract from the fibre-rich foods in our diet as fuel. In return they produce substances called short-chain fatty acids. These compounds feed the top layer of human cells in the colon. In fact, 10% of our energy comes from this process.
Akkermansia muciniphila also supports other bacterial species in the microbiome by giving them broken-up mucus so they can survive – a process known as “cross feeding”. But, if we don’t eat enough fibre as part of our diet, mucins become a much more heavily used source of nutrition.
This can lead to the depletion of the large intestine’s mucus layer – throwing the microbiome’s delicate ecosystem out of balance. This increases the chance of developing inflammatory diseases. So, although Akkermansia muciniphila is not a pathogen, it can remove too much mucus under the wrong conditions.
Our research is the first complete example of how mucus is broken down by this bacterial species. It’s important to understand this process, as it’s key in the way our microbes interact with each other – and with us. The enzymes that we described from Akkermansia muciniphila can now also be used as tools to analyse how these complex mucin structures vary across different body sites and between people.
The more researchers learn about Akkermansia muciniphila and the other microbes that live in the colon, the more we understand the importance of eating a variable, high-fibre diet.
Lucy Crouch receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Oviraptorosaurs are weird dinosaurs, which look a bit like flightless birds. But these ancient animals aren’t just funny looking fossils. As my team’s new research shows, they can help us understand how our own forelimbs evolved and challenge what scientists think about the T rex.
Covered in feathers and equipped with a strong, sharp beak, oviraptorosaurs ranged in size from a house cat to a giraffe. They could easily be mistaken for birds if not for the sharp claws on their hands. The oviraptorosaurs lived during the Cretaceous period (between 145 and 66 million years ago) and belonged to a group of dinosaurs called theropods. This is a group of mainly meat-eating dinosaurs with hollow bones that includes the T rex and velociraptor.
Theropod dinosaurs and humans share a common feature: we walk on two legs and use our front limbs for functions other than walking. Although some dinosaurs – the birds – stretched their forelimbs into wings and used them for flight, others, shrunk them instead. Short forelimbs, missing one or more fingers are most famous in the T rex, but many other theropods also evolved shorter arms and hands.
The widespread view among scientists of their shrunken forelimbs as “useless” comes from a 1979 paper. It argues evolution selected for increased head and hindlimb size in the T rex and the arms became smaller as an evolutionary byproduct. So, when my team at the University of Edinburgh analysed patterns of arm evolution in a group of oviraptorosaurs, we expected to find that forelimb reduction and finger loss would be linked.
Instead, we found the opposite. Our study is the latest example of growing evidence that the reduced forelimbs of certain theropods retained some kind of function. Until now, many palaeontologists assumed dinosaurs which evolved shorter arms and lost their fingers did so because they weren’t using them.
Oviraptorosaurs are the perfect group to study finger loss in theropods. Although modern birds did not evolve directly from oviraptorosaurs, they share many features with them. Oviraptorosaurs had toothless beaks, they were covered in feathers, and they sat on carefully constructed nests, with their eggs arranged in neat rings and partly buried. Most of these dinosaurs had long arms with three clawed fingers on each hand, perfect for grasping prey. With one exception.
Oksoko avarsan had stumpy arms and only two functional fingers. It lived in Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous period (about 72-66 million years ago) and would have shared its habitat with a gigantic relative of the T rex called Tarbosaurus. Oksoko did – technically – have a third digit but it was a useless leftover from a time when their ancestors needed all three fingers. In fact, Oksoko’s hands and forelimbs are far more similar to a T rex or a Tarbosaurus than to any of its oviraptorosaurian cousins.
It’s important to understand how theropod forelimbs evolved because they are some of the only animals, alongside humans, to become bipedal. This means they no longer rely on their forelimbs for moving around, whether that’s by walking, climbing, or flying. Their arms were free to evolve new functions. Many of them used their long arms and fingers for grasping. Others, like Oksoko, explored different and more specialised functions.
My team’s research, which analysed how the length of each arm bone changed over time, shows that these dinosaurs lost their third finger in a separate process to the shortening of their arms. This goes against the idea that their arms were functionless. If their forelimbs shrunk because the oviraptorosaurs were not using them, their fingers and forelimbs should have become shorter at the same time. Instead, their arms seem to have shrunk first.
Previous research shows one group of oviraptorosaurs, called the Heyuanninae, expanded their range during the Late Cretaceous (about 100-94 million years ago). They moved from the area that is now southern China into the Gobi Desert in northern China and southern Mongolia. The reduction in arm length coincided with this expansion in their range.
Then Oksoko lost its third finger. Although some other closely related oviraptorosaurs had relatively short third fingers, in none of them was it as reduced as in Oksoko.
Forelimb reduction and finger loss in this group of dinosaurs could have been caused by the new habitat. Once they had moved into the Gobi Desert, they would have come up against new survival challenges. For example, they might have had to adapt to new food sources or different predators. Something about their new habitat favoured dinosaurs with shorter arms and fewer fingers, causing them to evolve their stumpy, two-fingered forelimbs.
We think they started using their arms for a whole new purpose. It’s possible Oksoko used its arms for digging. Oksoko might have lost its third finger, but its first finger is another story. This digit is thick and strong-looking, with a large claw on the end. We can see scars and ridges where its muscles used to be attached to its bones. These show that Oksoko had strong arms.
Rather than reaching and grasping like other oviraptorosaurs, Oksoko could have used its small but mighty forelimbs for scratch-digging. This could have been useful for finding food, such as plant roots and burrowing insects, or for building nests in the ground.
The holotype fossil (the fossil which leads to the naming of a new species) of Oksoko was the most important fossil in our analysis. Originally found by poachers in Mongolia, this fossil was nearly lost to science. Authorities rescued it at the border of Mongolia in 2006 and it was taken to the Institute of Palaeontology, but wasn’t fully studied until 2020. It was Oksoko’s strange two-digit forelimbs that made us want to investigate finger evolution.
Despite the similarities in the size and shape of their forelimbs, it unlikely that T rex and Oksoko used their arms for the same thing. Oksoko was a small herbivore. T rex was a giant carnivore – it was so massive that it couldn’t have reached the ground to dig, even if it tried. But Oksoko shows us that theropod forelimbs can get shorter and lose digits without becoming functionless. And that begs the question: are T rex’s arms as useless as they’re often portrayed?
My team’s new research shows that our initial assumption – that forelimb and digit reduction are caused by function loss in oviraptorosaurs – is probably wrong. Instead, arm-shrinking and finger loss seem to be caused by adaptation to a new environment and the adoption of a new function. This is an example of how evolution can mould forelimbs to suit different habitats and uses.
It is also a step forward in understanding how theropods evolved such an amazing diversity of forelimb shapes and sizes.
Milly Mead receives funding from the Swedish Research Council.
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.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
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.
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.
.png){kind=link}
