A June 24, 2026, earthquake shook buildings to the ground, trapping and killing people in Caracas, Venezuela, and nearby communities. Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images Venezuela and its capital, Caracas, were rocked by two massive earthquake pulses on June 24, 2026, just seconds apart.

The shaking from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 events caused buildings to collapse in cities across the northern part of the country, killing more than 500 people and trapping many more. University of Southern California geophysicist Sylvain Barbot explained what’s known about the earthquake pulses so far, what risks are still ahead and why Californians should pay attention.

How many earthquakes hit Venezuela, and why did it see so much damage? Earthquakes are natural phenomena that typically happen at the boundaries of Earth’s tectonic plates. These plates, which make up the Earth’s crust, are tens of miles thick and carry the oceans and continents.

They are slowly moving, but not in a smooth, consistent way. Venezuela sits along the boundary between two of these plates: The South American plate and the Caribbean plate. As they slide past each other, these plates can stick, building up resistance before eventually having a catastrophic failure that generates an earthquake.

Venezuela sits on the South American plate, adjacent to the Caribbean plate, which underlies the Caribbean Sea. The circles indicate large earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 and higher from 1900 to 2019. Most are on or near the plate margins.

U.S. Geological Survey There were two big pulses of seismic activity within 39 seconds of each other on June 24, 2026, both over magnitude 7. They could have been separate events or a single earthquake with two pulses.

Scientists don’t yet know because we’re still analyzing the data. Two separate earthquakes is plausible. In 2023 there was an earthquake “doublet” in Turkey, where two magnitude 7-plus earthquakes happened within eight hours of each other.

In that case, it was clearly two events. In Venezuela the pulses were just a few seconds apart. There have been earthquakes of this magnitude in the past that ruptured different segments of very long faults, creating the appearance of two different earthquakes but that were actually ruptures from the same event.

What triggers destructive earthquakes like this? Earthquakes are controlled by how rocks resist shear and stress. The stress can build up over years or decades until it overcomes the strength of the rocks, making them break.

When that happens, the stress propagates and the rupture grows. That’s not a gradual motion. Within seconds, the plates quickly move, causing an earthquake. This happens several miles underground, where the temperature and pressure are both very high.

That action is difficult to reproduce in a laboratory and involves many processes, from mechanics to chemistry to the motion of fluids. But the outcome is simple: There is a rupture that involves the sliding of rocks past one other that creates a surface rupture that breaks everything in its path, causing damage.

Are there similarities between the fault system in Venezuela and California’s San Andreas? The faults involved in Venezuela’s earthquake and California’s San Andreas are very similar. They are known as transform faults, where this strike-slip motion happens as plates slide horizontally past each other.

Even the rates of motion are quite similar. In Venezuela the boundaries move past each other at about 0.8 inches (20 millimeters) per year on average. Along the San Andreas Fault it’s slightly faster, about 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) per year.

How strike-slip movement happens during a large earthquake in a transform fault, similar to the San Andreas in California. U.S. Geological Survey They also create large magnitude earthquakes at similar frequencies. On the San Andreas Fault, scientists expect on average a large earthquake of magnitude 7 or above every 170 years or so, with the timing varying along the fault.

However, this is not clockwork – it can be much more frequent or much less. Southern California’s last “big one” was the Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857, a powerful magnitude 7.9. A recent study suggested the stress along the southern San Andreas is stronger now than it has been in at least 1,000 years.

If the assumptions of the work are correct, it may be ready for a rupture. But there is great variability in how frequently big earthquakes happen, so it may be another 100 years or it could happen tomorrow.

We just don’t know. Many earthquakes have happened on these faults in the past. That alone is reason for communities to have strong seismic codes for buildings and infrastructure, such as bridges and hospitals, and emergency preparedness plans.

Have scientists identified warning signs that might suggest an earthquake is imminent? Scientists have been actively looking for reliable precursors that could generate warnings of an impending rupture, but we don’t yet have reliable signals.

There are anecdotal cases of seismic swarms before a large rupture that, in hindsight, could have provided some clues to possibly detect early signs of future large ruptures. But that isn’t always the case.

Machine learning has identified systematic changes of microseismic activity that precedes large ruptures, and some studies of the physics of earthquakes have started to provide explanations of why that happens. So, there is hope that in the future we’ll be able to connect the dots and have a good understanding of the mechanics.

But we’re not there yet. People run into the streets to get away from buildings as an earthquake shakes Caracas on June 24, 2026. Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images We can, however, pick up short-term warnings to issue alerts.

Once an earthquake has started, it generates seismic waves of different kinds that propagate at different speeds. The ones that propagate fastest arrive first, and they can be detected, allowing scientists to predict the second and third waves, which are slower and generally more destructive.

After the first waves, called the P waves, you have the S wave – the shear waves – that are a little more intense. And after those you have the surface waves.

The first P waves can trigger early warning systems, giving people just seconds, but that’s enough time to stop traffic and shut down gas pipelines, fast-moving trains and infrastructure that is sensitive to shaking.

It may be enough time to find cover to avoid being killed in your office or at home by the collapse of the building. What risks does Venezuela face now? We know a lot about the tectonics of these regions because geologists have spent decades mapping these faults and learning about their behavior.

But to understand this particular event, scientists need to be at the scene to see the extent of damage and assess the extent of the rupture itself. Meanwhile, earthquakes bring other hazards. The shaking is followed by a period of months or years when the region becomes more prone to landslides because the rocks have moved.

That means the next rainstorm will likely trigger landslides, so Venezuela can expect more damage, more hazards and perhaps more deaths. This article, originally published June 26, 2026, has been updated with the death toll rising.

Sylvain Barbot has nothing to disclose.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/venezuelas-deadly-earthquakes-happened-on-a-fault-similar-to-the-san-andreas-and-the-risks-arent-over-yet-a-geophysicist-explains/

The agricultural economy was the backbone of wealth in ancient Greece. Food brought people together, whether in smaller groups at a wine-drinking symposium, or the entire community in a sacrificial feast of epic proportions. In The Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic poem, Odysseus’s son joins one of these early feasts – a community barbecue of 100 cattle.

Researchers have long recognised the economic, political and social importance of food in ancient Greece. But one key question has never been fully settled: how were animals actually raised within this system? For nearly a century, academics have been locked in a debate over the organisation of ancient Greek animal husbandry.

At one extreme is the idea of large, semi-nomadic herds moving seasonally across the landscape in search of pasture. At the other is a more intimate picture: smaller herds integrated into everyday farm life, feeding on local fields and crop by-products.

In other words, were animals part of a mobile pastoral system, or woven tightly into mixed crop-and-livestock farms? A video explaining my research.

Along with an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and scientists, I have analysed one of the largest assemblages of animal remains in the ancient Greek world from the site of Azoria on Crete to address this debate.

We published our findings in a recent article.

When early historians first addressed the question of how animals were reared and plants cultivated in ancient Greece, large herds of sheep and goats managed by semi-nomadic groups were a common sight in the modern Greek landscape.

These herds moved from summer uplands to winter lowlands, searching for seasonal pastures. American geographer Ellen Churchill Semple’s book The Geography of the Mediterranean Region: Its Relation to Ancient History was the first to suggest this seasonal husbandry also existed in ancient Greece.

Greek pottery showing a ritual sacrifice on an altar. British Museum 1839,0214.68, CC BY However, another school of thought has suggested a different model for the economy. Based on interviews with elderly shepherds and farmers, archaeologist Paul Halstead has suggested in several articles and in his 2014 book Two Oxen Ahead.

Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean, that animals were mostly reared in smaller herds attached to farmsteads. They largely grazed on fallow fields or nearby rough pasture, he argued, or consumed fodder crops grown for them.

In this model, plants and animals were integrated. Over the decades, academics have lined up on either side of this debate. But until recently, it was impossible to directly assess the diet and mobility of ancient Greek animals and settle this debate.

Science meets history The application of stable isotope analysis – a technique that measures forms of the same chemical element, called isotopes, which have slightly different weights – has given researchers their first opportunity to test these competing ideas using the remains of animals from ancient Greek sites.

By measuring the mix of isotopes preserved in ancient bones and teeth, scientists can work out what an animal or person ate and drank, and even gain clues about where it lived. This is because food and water leave chemical signatures that become locked in the body over time.

Atoms have multiple isotopes that vary their mass due to the number of neutrons. So, stable isotope analysis, which examines the amounts of different isotopes in archaeological remains, can answer questions about the sources (food, water, air) that contributed to the makeup of an animal (or human).

Goat tooth from the site of Azoria, sampled for carbon and oxygen isotopes. Author provided, CC BY-SA The ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes provide evidence for the sorts of food consumed by ancient animals.

The ratios of oxygen stable isotopes provide a seasonal signature for the growth of tooth enamel. By combining analyses of these different isotopes, it’s possible to directly address the agropastoral debate and assess the seasonal diet of animals.

The first applications of these techniques to ancient Greek animals only served to complicate the situation. Due to expense and availability of samples, only a handful of animals were tested at sites like Knossos on Crete or Argilos in northern Greece.

Rather than one model, a range of different animal husbandry strategies were identified in the samples analysed from these sites. However, the small samples size meant researchers could not draw firm conclusions, other than confirming that animals in ancient Greece were raised using a mix of different farming method.

Unfortunately, how this mix showed up in the ancient economy was unclear. Our study at the site of Azoria on Crete is the first designed to explicitly test these two competing hypotheses in an analysis of 50 sheep and goats.

Testing the competing hypotheses Azoria is, in many ways, the ideal site for examining the economy that underpinned the early development of city-states. It was suddenly abandoned right before the start of the classical period (around 510–323BC), in the early 5th century BC.

This abandonment provides a snapshot of life at this moment, as the people left behind their trash (including plentiful animal and plant remains) and also their bulky pottery. The intact ceramic assemblages have helped us assess the function of different buildings and rooms.

Near the top of the hill are a series of public buildings, including the communal dining building. Here, citizens regularly gathered to feast and discuss the matters of the day. On lower terraces are several houses for elite citizens.

My analysis of over 200,000 animal remains from these spaces provides unprecedented insight into household dinners and public feasts. I found that the same animals, of the same ages, were consumed in houses and in the communal dining building.

Mostly goats followed by sheep, pigs and cattle.

More interestingly, the food was prepared differently in feasts than at home, with professional butchers (likely sacrificial priests) wielding cleavers and chopping up cuts of meat for feasts, while household preparation was done using standard knives to slice meat.

While this might suggest that the same animals were used in both kinds of meals, the isotope analysis shows that this is not the case. The carbon values from animals eaten at home match up with oxygen values taken from different points along the same tooth, which change with the season.

This indicates that these animals were mainly raised near local farms and ate plants that changed with the seasons. However, the animals consumed in public feasts diverge from this pattern, showing an opposite pattern where carbon isotope values diverge from oxygen isotope values.

This pattern indicates a movement between summer uplands and winter lowlands. Others show a flat trend to carbon isotopes, probably indicating they consumed specially grown fodder crops year round. These results demonstrate that the ancient Greek food economy was more complicated than academics initially assumed.

Rather than raising animals or plants together or separate from one another, both strategies existed. That said, it looks like the political unity of city-states may have been strengthened by large public sacrifices that provided meat for all citizens, made possible through the organised, specialised management of communal herds.

These conclusions give us a new appreciation for the communities that formed ancient Greek city-states. They worked together to support one another and to feed one another. To create a setting for feasting and political life.

After all, you are defined by more than just what you eat, but also who you eat with, and, of course, what your food ate.

Flint Dibble received funding for the isotope analysis from a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, European Commission (Grant Agreement Number: 101026314) as part of the ZOOCRETE research project.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/a-goats-tooth-may-have-solved-a-100-year-debate-about-ancient-greek-farming/

Venezuela has a well-documented vulnerability to earthquakes. The country sits on the boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, resulting in routine tremors and causing historical earthquake disasters. But the experience of a “doublet”, a pair of 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes 40 seconds apart, on June 24 was a rare misfortune.

From an epicentre in the north-western city of San Felipe, the impact sheared down Venezuela’s Caribbean coast with devastating force. The historic port city and resort of La Guaira, home to around 200,000 people, has been declared a disaster zone.

In the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, which is approximately 30km from La Guaira, buildings have collapsed in the once prosperous suburbs of Altamira, San Bernardino, Baruta and Chacao. The national airport, Maiquetia, has also been closed because of extensive damage.

While there have been pockets of resilience, an estimated two-thirds of Venezuelan residents live in informal housing. This a product of Venezuela’s rapid urbanisation in the 1960s and 1970s and the housing shortages that followed.

Officially, at least 235 people have been killed and 30,000 more are registered as missing. The US Geological Survey estimates that as many as 10,000 people may have been killed in a disaster of this magnitude. Read more: Was Venezuela struck by an earthquake ‘doublet’?

Here’s what we know so far The two earthquakes struck north-western Venezuela, with the impact felt along the country’s Caribbean coast.

Peter Hermes Furian / Shutterstock The earthquakes add a tragic new layer to the country’s existing humanitarian crisis – a crisis that has severely depleted the capacity of Venezuela’s state and society to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

The years of Nicolás Maduro’s presidency, which spanned from 2013 through to his removal by the US at gunpoint in January 2026, were characterised by economic collapse. Hyperinflation, shortages and authoritarian repression of protests contributed to a situation where approximately a quarter of the population have fled the country in recent years.

Venezuela’s economic fragility is ultimately a product of political incompetence and corruption. But it has been reinforced by crushing US oil and financial sanctions imposed during Donald Trump’s first presidency. The comprehensive sanctions regime has meant that, for the past nine years, Venezuela has been cut off from financial and energy markets.

Many of its exports and imports have subsequently been blocked.

Combined with the continued mismanagement of and underinvestment in infrastructure and utilities that were nationalised by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, this has led to an accumulation of problems that apply across the public sector.

These include hospitals short of medicines, staff, power and water. In the immediacy, energy and attention are focused on the search and rescue effort. But this is a politically perilous moment for Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.

Each stage of the humanitarian response brings serious logistical challenges. There is a shortage of mechanical equipment to help with the recovery operations, largely due to shortages of spare parts and diesel fuel. There are few ambulances, hospitals are overwhelmed and there are limited safe shelters for the displaced.

Access to food and drinking water is severely compromised and heavy rains are forecast. At the same time, Venezuela’s armed forces, police and national guard have been on a war footing since Trump’s return to office.

Their primary focus has been on defensive responses to what had, at least until Maduro’s capture, been a widely anticipated US military invasion. This has come at the expense of honing skills to implement the global “Wash” framework for responding to natural disasters by providing safe drinking water, constructing emergency latrines and promoting safe hygiene practices.

There is thus a very real risk of disease and food shortages in the coming days and weeks without urgent external support. The possibility of disorder, looting and the further degradation of the security situation is another grave concern.

Since Maduro’s removal, Venezuela’s pro-government security sector has not been tested by opposition protests or demonstrations. But lines of command have been disrupted in the turmoil of political change and public confidence in the military is low.

US holds key The US is the ultimate arbiter of Venezuela’s capacity to respond. Having assumed control of Venezuela’s oil export income after Maduro’s capture and still maintaining a sanctions regime, the US dictates what money can be received and how it is spent.

And while Venezuela has exported around 100 million barrels of oil since the ousting of Maduro, worth an estimated US$8 billion (£6.1 billion), the Trump administration has not publicly revealed how much revenue it has actually collected.

It has also not disclosed how much of this revenue has been drip fed back to Caracas. Restricted access to these funds will impede the disbursement of financial and humanitarian aid to earthquake-affected areas. Trump has announced that US$150 million in assistance will be mobilised for Venezuela and that the US Departments of War and State are coordinating relief support.

These funds must be received fast if popular frustration with the US regime change process is not to translate into widespread anger and if US plans to deport Venezuelan migrants are to stay on track.

Moving forward, there will no doubt be significant attention on the legacies of corruption and underinvestment that have rendered Venezuela so catastrophically vulnerable and debilitated in response to the earthquakes. This includes the quality of buildings delivered under the gran misión vivienda Venezuela, the house-building mission launched by Chávez in 2011 that claims to have delivered over 1 million new homes.

However, such an investigation will be complex, resisted politically and currently far down the list of priorities.

Julia Buxton 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/venezuela-earthquakes-add-tragic-new-layer-to-the-countrys-humanitarian-crisis/

In 1997, I was one of relatively few tourists in Detroit. Well before #vanlife was a hashtag, I left my home state of California and drove around the country for five months living in a 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon.

Though I had few planned stops, Detroit was on my itinerary because I was a raver and I knew that techno originated in Detroit. After my trip, I applied to grad school at the University of Michigan with the plan to make Detroit electronic music my research topic.

I moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit during grad school.

Since that time, I have been not only an ethnographer of Detroit techno and house, but also a committed city resident, property owner and now parent of a high school student in a Detroit public school.

A lot has changed since I moved to Detroit to study its music scene, including the growth of Movement Festival, a free electronic dance music festival, which started in 2000. It is now ticketed and draws 90,000 attendees, a mix of locals and tourists, over Memorial Day weekend while the city fills up with others who skip the festival but attend day parties and after-parties.

Longtime Detroiters who never left don’t consider the city’s revitalization a “comeback” because the things that make Detroit special – community and creativity – have been here all along. But this growth means today’s techno tourists encounter a robust tourism infrastructure quite unlike my early visit.

Some techno tourists don’t only visit during Movement weekend. By regularly visiting Detroit, they achieve recognition and a limited kind of belonging that helps maintain the importance of Detroit to techno’s history. A simple local or tourist binary doesn’t capture how belonging works in cultural scenes.

That belonging is gradual and never fully guaranteed. John Collins leads a tour of Detroit’s Exhibit 3000 for visitors from Detroit, New York, Spain and Germany.

John Collins, CC BY-ND Techno tourism in difficult years Techno tourists, and especially repeat techno tourists, arrived in Detroit in the 1990s and early 2000s, despite decades of disinvestment and governmental neglect in the city.

With white flight shifting economic investment to the suburbs, where Black Detroiters encountered racial discrimination, belonging for Black Detroiters in the city became critical. Informal economic activity, self-reliance and community connection were vital lifelines. The music scenes that would eventually produce techno grew out of all three.

Black Detroiters living in an economically depressed 1980s Detroit imagined a sonic future that was inclusive and equitable. Pioneers Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson were inspired by the breadth of genres on the radio and in local clubs.

Saunderson, a founding figure of Detroit techno, has argued that music industry gatekeepers and promoters have often limited opportunities for Black artists, even within a genre they helped create. Electronic dance music scholars have noted that countercultural scenes have shifted into a global industry, reshaping or erasing local meanings in favor of commercialization.

Inviting company to see the origins Tourists are drawn to Detroit techno because it offers something increasingly rare: a living scene where the creators and their communities are still present and active. This scene is sustained by locals.

Detroiters, with the originators of Chicago House, built one of the foundations for all electronic dance music out of a besieged urban place, through grit and the creativity of Black musicians. Locals are protective of their scene.

Taglines, like the one used by Underground Resistance, “for those who know,” reflect a long-running underground scene that has had to deal with bootleggers trying to profit off what they created. Locals create authenticity but do not necessarily control how that authenticity circulates or is monetized through tourism.

A first- or second-time tourist experience during Movement weekend may include the festival in Hart Plaza and various day and after-parties that turn Detroit into a 24-hour party destination. While Movement, and especially its earlier versions, grew out of the Detroit scene, it has evolved into a festival shaped more by the global festival industry than by its local origins.

There are, however, moments when the locals try to introduce a bit of the authentic Detroit: homegrown music, dance floors that include longtime Detroiters, and experiences outside of the city’s downtown entertainment district. Beyond downtown, closer to the roots In 2002, for example, Underground Resistance, an important foundational Detroit techno collective, decided to throw a cabaret.

A digital version of a flyer advertising Underground Resistance’s cabaret in 2002. Underground Resistance, CC BY-ND A cabaret was an informal party held in a hall. Partygoers brought their own booze, and DJs usually played R&B, hip-hop and ghettotech.

Underground Resistance wanted tourists to experience Detroit in its most local form in order to understand the cultural world techno came from. The party showcased highly skilled neighborhood DJs who weren’t internationally known. People responded.

Tourists from Japan and Germany came to the cabaret. Underground Resistance successfully moved visitors beyond the festival and into the local culture that shaped the music. The spirit of that early cabaret lives on. Every festival weekend, Moodymann, an internationally recognized Detroit electronic artist, alternates between hosting a roller-skating party, called Soul Skate, and a backyard barbecue.

Listen and see Soul Skate.

In addition to DJs, these events feature funk and soul performers who are influential in DJing culture, such as Whodini, a pioneering hip-hop group, and the Brides of Funkenstein, a vocal group associated with George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic.

Community-centered events are not the biggest moneymakers of Movement festival weekend. The parties with the most ticket sales and highest prices, which can run as high as US or more for an after-party, are often put on by out-of-town promoters.

Many locals can’t afford the high ticket prices, and others choose not to attend, leaving Movement weekend dance floors filled with tourists and lacking a Detroit feel.

Because of the influx of promotion teams from outside of Detroit, sometimes when I go out on festival weekend I actually feel like I have left Detroit, as if I have become a tourist in my own town.

Repeat tourist as a conduit When I was a raver in California I had a friend named Fred. After I moved to Detroit in 1998, I started to see him around, and I’d try to introduce him to a Detroiter: “Meet Fred.

I knew him back home before I moved here!” And the Detroiter would be like: “Yeah I know Fred.” He’d been coming to Detroit for years before I moved here. At that time, they knew him better than they knew me.

Fans like Fred blur the boundary between insider and outsider, accumulating subcultural knowledge over time, but without having the roots of a local. They are recognized, but not fully of the place. The repeat tourist has played an important role in Detroit techno culture.

The music has been able to spread around the globe but stay connected to the people who created it, due in part to repeat tourists or fans who aren’t able to travel to Detroit but care enough to know the origins of techno.

Music culture can easily be divorced from its originators, so the fan who digs deeper than a casual tourist is an important conduit for a shared culture that is respectful of roots. We can’t all move to the places of our passions.

But if we are repeat tourists there, what do we owe the locals who actually call them home? Tec-Troit, the family reunion Tec-Troit is an annual electronic music festival that is Detroit-focused, small and free to attend.

It attracts locals and some tourists. Nick Speed playing at Tec-Troit 2025. Watch other 2025 videos. Started in 2011, Tec-Troit is “a way to showcase local, overlooked Detroit electronic musicians” and strengthen the city’s connections to its techno roots, organizers say.

Running June 26-28, this year’s festival follows tradition with an almost all-local lineup, with the exception of out-of-town headliner A Guy Called Gerald, who’s playing with Detroit’s Mike Banks, the founder of Underground Resistance.

In an interview with DEQ Quarterly, Raul Rocha, Tec-Troit’s founder, said that part of the inspiration was the difference that he noticed when Movement Festival shifted to paid entrance. Rocha noted that a free festival encourages people to discover the music.

Festival attendance could turn someone “into a DJ,” he said. “It might produce a dancer. They might be a part of the community.” Tec-Troit includes DJ workshops, dance courses and intentional outreach to Detroit youth to nurture Detroit’s next generation of artists.

Drivetrain playing at Tec-Troit 2025. Commitment, on repeat Unlike Movement with its steep entrance fees and highly paid headliners, Tec-Troit is more like a family reunion. Tec-Troit reconnects locals, and also repeat tourists, with the roots of the music, but its performers won’t earn as much as internationally traveling DJs headlining other bigger festivals.

Though standing on the foundation built by Black Detroiters and Chicagoans, most of the highest paid DJs are white. In my first years in Detroit, as a grad student, I asked Underground Resistance if I could research them.

They said no, explaining that people came to Detroit, got knowledge, and then left without really giving back to Detroit. But I stayed and was eventually invited in to help curate, with Bridgette Banks, Exhibit 3000, the world’s first electronic dance music museum.

You can move from techno tourist to local. But it takes time, intention and commitment.

Carla Vecchiola serves on the board of directors of Exhibit 3000.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/techno-tourism-in-detroit-what-do-visitors-owe-the-city-that-created-the-music/

A camper blows a bugle at Camp Nathan Hale in upstate New York in 1943.

Gordon Parks/Heritage Images/via Getty Images Imagine tall trees across the lake, a calm breeze, children laughing in the distance, the scent of your old canvas tent – there’s no forgetting the sights, sounds, smells and feel of summer camp.

Even if you’ve never gone to an overnight summer camp, you can still conjure visions of these iconic American outdoor places, thanks to books like “Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great,” TV shows like “Salute Your Shorts,” and films like “Wet Hot American Summer,” “Friday the 13th” and “The Parent Trap.” However, popular culture can’t fully explain why summer camps hold such a nostalgic and almost obsessive place in the nation’s collective consciousness.

For many, attending summer camp is a rite of passage.

But these camps originally arose to address a deeper anxiety held by parents, leaders and reformers, who worried about the character development of children and sought to use these places as training grounds for good American citizens.

One of us, Seth, currently works as a summer camp director. But we’re both scholars of geography who see summer camps as important educational spaces outside the traditional classroom. At camp, young people practice living with others, encounter people from different backgrounds and create community together.

At a time when Americans disagree deeply over the meaning of citizenship, belonging and education, summer camps remain places where values and visions of America as inclusive or exclusive are communicated to young people. From urban refuge to national ritual American summer camps date back to the mid-19th century.

The first organized one is often attributed to educator and outdoorsman Frederick W. Gunn, who founded The Gunnery Camp in Washington, Connecticut, in 1861. There, boys were encouraged to march, fight, hunt, forage and live in the outdoors like soldiers.

Campers at The Gunnery Camp, which was founded in Connecticut in 1861. Letters from Charley Goodyear/Wikimedia Commons Other summer camps soon planted flags of their own.

In 1874, the Young Women’s Christian Association hosted its first summer camp in New Jersey, with other youth organizations such as the YMCA, the Boys Club and 4-H, a federal youth development program, following suit.

With more and more families settling in cities in the second half of the 19th century, camps gave kids a refuge from the oppressive heat, rancid smells and grinding noise of summer in the city.

“Muscular Christianity” also rose to prominence during this period. Its proponents championed a masculine vision of faith that emphasized physical discipline, character-building and experiencing the rugged outdoors. Embraced by prominent figures, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, the movement helped shape the philosophy of early American summer camps.

The summer camp scene really began to take off in the early 20th century. The establishment of the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1910 and 1912, respectively, added to the growing list of camps available for American youth.

Summer camps declined in the 1940s due to World War II, but they bounced back stronger than ever in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, especially as membership surged in youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts of America.

U.S. president Richard Nixon poses with a group of Girl Scouts from a nearby summer camp in 1973. Bettmann/Getty Images Since then, however, the number of kids in these youth organizations has decreased. The reasons include competition from year-round youth sports competitions, scandals involving youth organizations, including the Boy Scouts, and the rising costs of attending camps.

Camp as character development Despite their dip in popularity over the past few decades, summer camps continue to have a significant economic and cultural impact. According to a Gallup poll, roughly 30 million American youth attended summer enrichment programs in 2024, which includes day camps, summer schools and sleepaway camps.

The American Camp Association has found that the youth camp industry contributes US billion annually to the U.S. economy. Amid classic activities, including swimming, hiking and craft-making, summer camps have long played a larger role as a nationalistic ritual.

Flag lowering and raising ceremonies, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of patriotic songs remain mainstays at many summer camps today. At camp, children often learn about patriotism, discipline, cooperation, leadership and self-reliance.

At Canyon Camp, a Scouting America summer camp in Northwest Illinois, Scouts have the opportunity to earn merit badges such as “American Heritage,” which can involve learning the racial and ethnic history of your hometown, and “Citizenship in the Nation,” which involves learning about the three branches of government.

During summer 2026, campers can also earn a special America 250 challenge patch by completing tasks such as giving a speech on “one right I won’t take for granted” and virtually visiting a historic site from America’s founding era.

Scouts, leaders and staff stand at attention for a flag-lowering ceremony at Canyon Camp in Stockton, Ill. Canyon Camp Who gets to be a camper Summer camps – and the ideals they communicated – were never neutral.

Race, class and gender have historically shaped who was welcomed. The summer camps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were primarily for white, Protestant, middle- and upper-class boys from Northeastern cities. The summer camp movement gradually expanded to include different regions, classes, faiths and genders.

For example, the first Jewish summer camps emerged in upstate New York at the turn of the 20th century; they sought to assimilate campers into American life and encourage civic participation.

Similarly, Black communities formed summer camps during the Jim Crow era, such as Camp Atwater in Massachusetts, to provide a refuge from segregation and racism, promote racial pride and give kids the opportunity to develop leadership skills.

Interracial summer camps, while not widespread, did start to crop up in the mid-20th century. In 1943, Black photographer Gordon Parks documented two of those summer camps – Camp Nathan Hale and Camp Gaylord White – in New York state.

His images of Black and white children playing, eating, working and raising the American flag together showed how summer camp could promote a new set of national values. A boy gets a helping hand from a fellow camper on the lake at Camp Nathan Hale in 1943.

Gordon Parks/Heritage Images via Getty Images But camps proved slow to racially integrate, even after the monumental civil rights victories of the 1960s. In 1965, when the American Camping Association adopted a nondiscriminatory, interracial policy, 125 members resigned in opposition.

Southern 4-H programs, even while receiving funds from the federal government, hesitated to desegregate their camps during this period. A summer camp divide still exists. A 2024 Gallup poll found that Black, Asian and low-income children are less likely to participate in summer camps.

Additionally, 32% of parents shared that their children did not attend summer camp due to cost considerations. To this end, children from wealthy families are overrepresented. Camp and the culture wars Today’s summer camps are not all explicitly nationalistic, nor do they all teach the same values.

Scout camps, faith-based camps, camps for LGBTQ kids and camps for children with physical or mental disabilities differ in their missions. What unites them is the belief that camps can help mold character and instill the values children will carry into adulthood.

Yet these values have become contested terrain in recent years.

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that Scouting America – formerly Boy Scouts of America – shed all diversity, equity and inclusion practices and redouble its efforts as an organization that “develops boys into men,” he underscored how even seemingly apolitical institutions have become battlegrounds in America’s culture wars.

Despite the fact that young women and girls had been welcomed into the organization since 2019, Hegseth seemed to want to restore an older view of Scouting and summer camps, one centered on masculine ideals of ruggedness, individuality and muscular nationalism.

To us, this rhetoric is not simply an innocent expression of nostalgia. It seeks to define what it means to be a good American and a good citizen – and who should be included in this vision.

As the summer season continues and the nation will soon celebrate it’s 250th birthday, we think it’s a fitting time to reflect on the role that summer camp plays in reinforcing ideals of what it means to be an American and which values ought to be promoted – and we believe this matters more than ever in 2026.

Seth T.

Kannarr currently serves as the Camp Director for Canyon Camp, a Scouting America summer camp operating in Northwest Illinois.

Derek H. Alderman 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/summer-camps-remain-a-battleground-over-what-it-means-to-be-american/

The Supreme Court ruled that a federal law protecting prisoners’ religious rights does not allow lawsuits for money damages. AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaibv For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has issued a long series of wins for plaintiffs seeking to protect their religious practices.

On June 23, 2026, though, the majority delivered an uncommon defeat in this contentious area. Landor v. Louisiana Department of Public Education and Safety, a 6-3 judgment, rejected the claim of Damon Landor, a Rastafarian whose hair was forcibly shaved in prison.

Landor had worn long dreadlocks for almost 20 years as an expression of his beliefs – part of a biblical practice known as the “Nazarite vow.” Like lower court judges, the Supreme Court did not dispute that officials violated Landor’s rights.

However, the high court’s majority ruled that he could not sue individual officials at the prison. The case stands out for at least three other reasons. First, Landor v. Louisiana underscores the complexity and far-reaching nature of religious freedom laws in the United States and the increasingly diverse faith traditions to which they apply.

Christians now represent 62% of the American population, down from 78% in 2007, while 29% have no religious affiliation and 7% belong to other faith traditions. Second, Landor’s case gained support from many groups typically at odds over how to protect religious freedoms – groups disappointed with this week’s decision.

Finally, the case highlights the religious rights of the nearly 2 million people in U.S. prisons, jails and detention and correctional facilities – and the challenge of holding their public employees accountable when those rights are violated.

Religious vow Landor was incarcerated in Louisiana in 2020 for possessing methamphetamine, cocaine, amphetamine and marijuana. At first, officials respected his religious practice. Just three years earlier, a federal appeals court affirmed that Rastafarian inmates must be allowed to keep their dreadlocks under a federal law passed in 2000: the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

As a sign of faith, many Rastafarians do not cut their hair. Mattstone911/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Toward the end of his sentence, Landor was transferred to a different correctional facility in the state. There – with three weeks left for Landor to serve – the warden ignored the judicial order, directing guards to shackle Landor and forcibly shave his head.

After finishing his sentence, Landor filed suit for money damages under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The act forbids the government and its officials from imposing “substantial burden(s)” on incarcerated people’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

It also protects religious groups from discrimination through zoning restrictions. Journey through the courts In 2022, a federal trial court in Louisiana condemned Landor’s treatment but rejected his claim, concluding that money damages were not an appropriate remedy under the act.

The following year, the 5th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals “emphatically condemn(ed) the treatment that Landor endured.” However, the panel unanimously affirmed the lower court’s decision, based on its earlier ruling that plaintiffs cannot sue government officials in their individual capacities for monetary damages – only the institution.

Landor’s attorneys then sought an “en banc” hearing. In this uncommon procedure, parties seek further review by all of the judges in a federal circuit. The court denied this request, as a majority of judges in the circuit wrote that this was a question for the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal after a variety of organizations, including the federal government, submitted amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” briefs in favor of Landor. These included Americans United for Separation of Church and State, for example, which typically supports plaintiffs wishing to keep religion out of public life.

They also included the Becket Fund, which usually represents people seeking to increase faith’s role in public life, and the Trump administration. At issue was not whether Landor’s rights had been violated but whether he could sue an individual official, namely the warden, for monetary damages.

During oral arguments on Nov. 10, 2025, the Supreme Court seemed skeptical. Legal dilemma That skepticism was reflected in the court’s ultimate ruling. It was essentially a procedural ruling about the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act rather than a judgment on the merits of Landor’s religious freedom claim.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

U.S. Supreme Court justices attend inauguration ceremonies in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The majority’s argument that Landor could not sue centered on the spending clause of the U.S.

Constitution – the source of Congress’ authority to create the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

The spending clause allows the legislature to spend money to provide for the “general Welfare of the United States.” If a state or institution uses federal funds, their officials agree to certain conditions; if they violate those conditions, Congress can remove funding.

But the spending clause does not give Congress authority to hold individual employees accountable, Gorsuch argued in his 18-page opinion. Prison officials had not “voluntarily and knowingly consented to answer private suits” under the act, and so they could not be held directly liable for monetary damages.

Otherwise, Congress would have “effectively unbridled police power.” Jackson’s 29-page dissent disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of the spending clause.

The ruling, she contended, “jettisons ‘a long line of this Court’s precedents’” under which “Congress has been able to use its spending power to reach beyond direct recipients of federal funds.” As such, she worried that the court’s order imposed a “novel consent requirement.” Jackson also lamented the decision’s potential consequences for inmates.

Although the goal of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was to protect prisoners’ faith practices, she worried that people “like Landor who suffer violations of their religious freedom in state prisons – no matter how blatant – will often be left remediless.” Bigger picture At a glance, the Landor case appears to be a procedural disagreement rather than one over religious freedom.

However, I argue Landor v. Louisiana must be viewed as a setback for religious liberty, raising a serious question about whether minority faiths have as much protection under the First Amendment as larger religions.

The decision is also something of a surprise to me, because the Supreme Court has recently upheld free exercise rights in multiple high-profile cases, almost all of which involve Christianity – such as a football coach’s ability to pray on the field after public school games.

Portions of this article originally appeared in a previous article published on Nov. 6, 2025.

Charles J. Russo 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/why-a-supreme-court-case-over-a-haircut-could-be-a-setback-for-religious-liberty/

Some political leaders and ordinary Americans increasingly describe the United States as a Christian nation. Javier_Art_Photography/iStock via Getty Images Plus Amid celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary, assertions of the country’s religious, and specifically Christian, character have grown louder in political discourse.

In May 2026, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other prominent officials participated in a prayer service in Washington, D.C.

Johnson proclaimed, “We hereby rededicate the United States of America as one nation under God.” Though planners invoked the nation’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage, most religious leaders at the event came from the evangelical Christian tradition.

In a prerecorded video, President Donald Trump read from the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians. Many ordinary Americans who attended the prayer service seemed to recognize the desire to link the United States with Christianity.

One told a reporter that the U.S. was “founded on a Christian doctrine,” while another insisted it was “an important thing for our nation, just to put Christ back first.” People listen to Christian worship music at Rededicate 250, on the National Mall, on May 17, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson These ideas weren’t limited to this one-time gathering.

In speeches and prayers at public events, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth proclaimed the U.S. to be “one nation under God.” In February 2026, at a Christian broadcasters convention, he declared that “Christ is King” and claimed “a direct through line from the Old and New Testament Christian gospels to the development of Western civilization and the United States of America.” At first glance, these expressions might seem triumphalist declarations that link the nation’s success over the past 250 years with Christian faith.

As a historian of U.S. Christianity, however, I recognize expressions like these often arise when Christian Americans are feeling anything but triumphant. Civil war and committing to God As the U.S. plunged into Civil War in 1861, both the Union and Confederacy sought to link their side to God.

The preamble of the Confederate constitution noted a desire for “the favor and guidance of Almighty God” for their new government. In the North, the Pennsylvania clergyman M.R. Watkinson successfully lobbied for a reference to God to be added to coins.

Watkinson believed the nation was guilty of “disowning God” and urged the treasury secretary to make declarations of religiosity. This would “place us openly under the divine protection,” he noted. Three years later, as war dragged on, a group comprising members of the North’s major Protestant denominations urged a change to the preamble of the U.S.

Constitution.

Its members sought to declare that Americans recognized “Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government” and desired “to constitute a Christian government.” The amendment was not ratified during the Civil War, but the efforts in both the North and South revealed how an existential political crisis pushed language of God into government.

Efforts to declare America Christian Soon after the Civil War, Protestant Christians in the U.S. perceived a new threat. Beginning in the 1870s, atheism and indifference to religion became popular, especially among younger intellectuals.

Rising numbers of Catholic and Jewish immigrants brought greater religious diversity. Fearing a loss of their significant clout and influence, devout Protestants revived the earlier campaign to write their faith commitments into the Constitution.

In addition to placing references to God and Jesus in the Constitution, their proposed amendment declared the Bible “the supreme rule for the conduct of nations.” This was at odds with the beliefs of Roman Catholics, who look to church teaching and tradition along with the Bible as sources of religious authority.

The strong emphasis on the Bible made clear that the amendment was written primarily for Protestants. Supporters of the amendment included William Strong, a justice on the Supreme Court. In 1873, Strong suggested that the Constitution must either be made “explicitly Christian” or else Christianity would be “obliterated” from every U.S. institution.

The Christian amendment ultimately failed, largely because not all Protestants supported it. But anxieties about growing diversity and rising indifference had convinced many Americans of the need to enshrine Christianity in the Constitution. A godly nation with Cold War anxieties Anxieties in the aftermath of World War II and the dawn of the Cold War brought another rise of Christian rhetoric in U.S. civic life.

In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

The president’s signing statement noted that the phrase represented a “reaffirming” of “the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future.” This was important given the “violence and brutality” the world had experienced and the worrying “prospect of atomic war,” it said.

President Eisenhower at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church on Feb. 7, 1954, when he amended the Pledge of Allegiance to include the words ‘under God.’ Hilltoppers via Wikimedia The following year, Eisenhower signed a bill placing the phrase “In God We Trust” on all American currency.

One of the bill’s sponsors, U.S. Rep. Charles Bennett, a Florida Democrat, invoked the now-familiar idea of the nation’s religious character. Bennett insisted that the U.S. “was founded in a spiritual atmosphere and with a firm trust in God.” These developments stemmed from the goal of strengthening Americans’ religious commitment amid the conflict and competition of the early Cold War.

Scholars have demonstrated that political leaders like Eisenhower and religious figures, such as the increasingly popular evangelist Billy Graham, all stressed the importance of strong religious faith. In their eyes, that faith set the U.S. apart from the “godlessness” of Soviet communism.

The historian Kevin M. Kruse has shown that the rise of religious language reflected domestic political concerns as well. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, designed to respond to the Great Depression, had expanded the federal government’s role in the economy and empowered organized labor.

An alliance of conservative business leaders and ministers feared a loss of influence in this new political and social reality. During the 1950s they linked their values “faith, freedom, and free enterprise,” Kruse writes, all under the ideal of the U.S. as a nation under God.

250 years of faith and fear More often than not, the insistence that the U.S. is “one nation under God” is not a triumphant statement of success. This fear was evident in the response of an attendee at the “Rededicate 250” prayer service in May.

When interviewed by PBS, this attendee declared, “American is built on the Christian faith,” and added, “if we lose this faith, the whole country will collapse.” Throughout the nation’s history, that existential fear has inspired efforts to declare the U.S. a Christian nation.

This article includes material from an article published on Feb.

2, 2018.

David Mislin 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/2026-isnt-the-first-time-christians-have-tried-to-claim-the-united-states-as-their-own/

Private U.S. colleges and universities are charging an average of $44,961 in tuition for the 2025-26 school year. Catherine Lane/Moment via Getty Images As more Americans consider whether a college degree is worth it, the rising cost of attending a college or university is often at the forefront of their minds.

The average college tuition more than tripled between 1980 and 2022. Most of that increase appeared after 2000.

When adding in housing, food, books and other costs, the total amount to attend Brown University, Tulane University, the University of Richmond, Williams College and other schools can easily rise to $100,000 per year for those who don’t get scholarships or financial aid.

Why has a college degree become akin to an unaffordable luxury for millions of Americans? I am a scholar of the history of higher education. My data analysis of college tuition trends from 1840 to 2020 shows that college tuition has not significantly risen since 1990, at least compared to tuition changes over the previous decades.

In fact, after a period of extraordinarily high tuition growth from 1920 to 1990, tuition growth slowed in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. But that’s likely little comfort to American families shocked at the sticker price of college costs.

This is especially true because since 1980 the growth in real median family income has been relatively modest, while college tuition has continued to rise faster than inflation. Yale University’s class of 1870 poses for a photograph on the school’s campus in New Haven, Conn.

Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images Rising tuition, more loans High tuition has contributed to more than half of all undergraduate students in 2025 taking on student loans. In 1995 and 1996, by comparison, about 25% of undergraduate students had student loan debt.

Cumulative student loan debt rose from about $500 billion in 2006 to nearly $1.8 trillion in 2024. Student loan debt can prevent college graduates from purchasing their own homes or cars, as well as making other decisions in adulthood, such as whether to marry or have children.

Total student loan debt accounted for 7.1% of borrowers’ annual income in 2024, compared to 4.6% in 2006. There is no shortage of policy proposals for reducing college costs, ranging from freezing tuition to canceling student debt. But all available statistics about the evolution of tuition capture only the growth of tuition since 1963.

Tuition over time To fill this data void, I collected data about the origins and evolution of tuition charges at American colleges from 1840 to 2020. I’m working to create the very first national database of college tuition that charts its entire history.

This database, which I am working to publish in an academic journal, comprises tuition data in 10-year increments for 667 private and public colleges and universities – representing 64% of all colleges and universities established before 1920. Using this data, I recently published an article on the origins and evolution of college tuition in the journal History of Universities.

Tuition rates were essentially flat in inflation-adjusted terms for seven decades, from 1840 to 1910. The annual average tuition rate fluctuated between $41 and $59, equivalent to between $1,586 and $2,194 today. In many cases, college students did not pay their own tuition bills.

Rather, their future employers or the community where they expected to serve as teachers or ministers footed the bill. Some colleges did not even charge tuition. The number of colleges that offered tuition-free education climbed from one in 1840 to 119 in 1910.

In 1910, about 20% of universities – or 100 public schools and 19 private schools – did not charge their students any tuition. These schools included Stanford University, Howard University and Oregon State University.

While many 19th-century colleges were generally populated by poor students who were trained as ministers or teachers, early 20th-century colleges prepared students from rich families for professional careers as lawyers, medical doctors and other high-earning professions.

Influential donors such as John D. Rockefeller Jr. argued that these students could and should pay for their education. And he convinced college administrators that students from wealthy families went to college because they wanted to have a good time and because they wanted to make money after graduation.

The 1920s and 1930s subsequently saw a race among college administrators about who could raise tuition fees faster. These tuition increases were primarily not a response to financial needs but a response to the fact that college students increasingly came from richer families.

A shift in tuition In the 1920s and 30s a consensus emerged among donors, college administrators and state legislators that students should be asked to pay for their education. Tuition grew steadily by about 150% to 190% every 10 years, from the 1920s to the 1950s, in numbers not adjusted for inflation.

Then, the 1960s and 1970s experienced a growth of about 220% in each decade. The 1980s was the decade of the highest growth in my study, with a 241% increase over the 10-year time frame. In the 1990s tuition growth began to slow and dropped to 180% over the decade.

By the 2010s, tuition growth had fallen to 142%, which represented the lowest growth level since the 1910s. Columbia University alumni in New York City prepare to protest unemployment rates of college graduates in 1931. UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Tuition kept rising, but wages did not The highest tuition hike of 241% over a 10-year period occurred in the 1980s.

In that decade, the average college tuition rose from $2,686 to $6,467. Yet until 1980, tuition grew in sync with the median family income. Because median family income grew as fast as tuition, the share of the median family income that American families dedicated to paying college tuition remained rather low.

Up until 1980, college tuition accounted on average for only 14% of a family’s median income. While tuition growth slowed in the 1990s, the growth of median family income plummeted. To give one example, in the 1980s tuition grew by 241%, but family income grew only by 153%.

While Americans in 1980 spent only about 14% of their median family income on college tuition, it rose to 43% in 2020.

The pain of high tuition charges My data analysis of the evolution of college tuition shows that even though college tuition growth in the past two decades appears to be out of control, tuition growth has actually significantly slowed over the past few decades.

The pain from high tuition does not stem from extraordinary tuition growth but rather from the lack of a commensurate growth rate in median family income.

All of this, though, does not remove the anxiety that can come with affording a college degree.

Thomas Adam 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/college-is-unaffordable-for-many-americans-but-dont-just-blame-rising-tuition/

The U.S. is falling short of what its national wealth makes possible for its people.

Eric Raptosh Photography/Tetra images via GettyImages As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, the global data we collect and analyze shows that the country is failing to “promote the general Welfare,” as the Constitution’s framers promised a little more than a decade later.

We are scholars of human rights.

Alongside the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a nonprofit that tracks how well more than 200 countries and territories are meeting the human rights commitments their governments have made, we annually update scores measuring whether people can actually get the basics of a decent life, such as healthcare, adequate food and a quality education.

The latest data our team has amassed shows that the U.S. is falling short compared with what it could achieve, given its US trillion economy. This is not a one-year blip – the U.S. has been underperforming for the past 25 years.

Economic and social rights Two foundational human rights agreements, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, describe countries’ obligations to promote the welfare of their people.

Countries should improve the health, education and occupational well-being of their people over time, as best they can, given their “resources.” The United States co-authored and voted in favor of the universal declaration in 1948. Although President Jimmy Carter signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1977, U.S. lawmakers never ratified it.

Resources in this context generally mean a government’s wealth and capacity. We measure resources by using per capita gross domestic product – the amount of money in a country evenly divided among its entire population.

Because rich countries, like the U.S., can do more than lower-income countries, like Haiti, they are held to a higher standard. So we don’t just ask how healthy, well-fed or educated the people of a country are.

We ask how well a country is providing for its people compared with other countries with similar resources. A 100% score means a country is doing all it can with what it has, and further improvements would require more resources.

A lower score means there’s room for improvement. Doing all you can with what you have doesn’t mean a government has to provide goods and services directly. Governments can rely on private businesses, employers, nonprofits, public programs or a combination.

What we score is the result: Are people actually getting what they need?

We compared the scores of the U.S. over time against 37 other high-income free-market based countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a forum for industrialized economies to exchange information on the best policies and practices to support growth and development.

Then we calculated how many Americans would be able to have these things if the U.S. adopted better policies. Across all five areas we track – health, food, education, work and income – the U.S. has either stalled or lost ground, relative to its own history and to its peers.

Right to health The U.S. ranks below its peer nations on health.

Even Turkey and Hungary, less industrialized countries where the GDP per capita is a fraction of what it is in the U.S., have guaranteed better health outcomes for their people when compared to their resources.

Health scores indicate how well a country keeps its people alive and well, like whether children are born and stay healthy, whether adults live long lives and if the incidence of preventable diseases is kept low.

The U.S. scores about 80% of what it possibly could. By comparison, Canada scores 90%, Japan 88%, Mexico 86% and Australia 93%. Iceland scores the highest at 97%. U.S. health scores have been relatively flat for a quarter century, rising from 79% in 2000 to a high of 82% in 2012.

In 2023, it had receded to 80%. The rising scores were likely due to more Americans gaining health insurance following the Affordable Care Act’s rollout. The later decline was caused primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic. We anticipate further declines.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 11.8 million Americans would lose access to government-subsidized health insurance due to changes in the big tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law in the summer of 2025.

By 2034, that number is projected to rise to 17 million people. Right to food People who have realized the right to food and adequate nutrition can reliably access affordable, healthy and nutritious food. Our score measures the percentage of people who find themselves in that situation.

The U.S. is only achieving about 81% of what it possibly could. If the United States allocated its resources more efficiently, we estimate that roughly 14.8 million more women and 9.1 million more men would always have enough healthy food.

Among countries for which we have food security data, the U.S. ranks 30th out of 37. Our data for the right to food in the U.S. spans 2015 to 2023. The U.S. food score fell slightly during that period, from 81.9% to 81.1%.

This means that as the U.S. got wealthier, Americans got hungrier. This score peaked in 2020, before the pandemic. Persistent inflation, rising housing costs and changes to the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program led to declines.

Signs point to the share of Americans who have access to affordable and nutritious food declining further. About 3.4 million people lost access to food assistance from September 2025 to June 2026, also due to cuts in Trump’s 2025 legislative package.

The effects are starker in some places. In Arizona, SNAP enrollment had fallen by about half as of April 2026, with more than 400,000 people losing benefits since July 2025. The Arizonans who were still getting SNAP benefits to help them buy groceries were receiving significantly lower benefits, ProPublica reported.

Right to dignified work and fair income Can people find work? Do they earn enough to get by? That’s what we measured for this economic right. We set the bar at half of what a typical American household earns.

By that measure, the U.S. reaches just 27% of what a country this wealthy could achieve, which is the worst score for an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member country. It does better at creating conditions where people can find a job, scoring about 75%, ranking 10th alongside countries like the Netherlands and Iceland.

But it’s still far behind leaders like South Korea and Mexico. If the U.S. changed some policies – such as increasing the federal minimum wage – 46 million people could earn enough to rise above that fair pay line.

About 5 million more would escape extreme poverty, surviving on less than .20 per day. The country has been losing ground on work and pay for 25 years. After accounting for how much richer the U.S. has grown, its score fell from about 62% in 2000 to 51% today.

This reflects the growth in economic inequality, with the gains in wealth skewing toward the richest Americans. The Poor People’s Campaign holds a rally advocating for living wages, voting rights and other policies that would help poor and low-wage Americans in 2024 in Washington.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images Right to an education The U.S. scores a 76% on the overall right to education, placing it 20th among 38 OECD countries. It’s behind Japan and the U.K. but ahead of some peers, including Canada and Norway.

We measure education through access – whether students are enrolled in school – and quality – how well they score on tests in science, math and reading. The U.S. rates a score of 90.7% on access but only averages 61.3% on quality.

An unmet promise The U.S. is among the wealthiest nations in human history, but it falls far short of what that national wealth makes possible for its people – in terms of health, food, pay and what its students learn.

The reason isn’t that the country can’t afford to do better; we’ve found it’s because the U.S. doesn’t turn that wealth into opportunities for everyone to have a decent life.

Recent cuts to health insurance coverage and food assistance are pushing much of what we measure in the wrong direction.

Promoting the general welfare was written into the country’s founding promise – 250 years later, our data shows how far there still is to go.

Stephen Bagwell is co-lead of the Economic and Social Rights team of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a registered charitable trust in New Zealand that provides human rights data to governments, advocates, and journalists around the world.

Susan Randolph previously received funding from the National Science Foundation for the development of human rights metrics.

She is one of the founders of and the current Economic and Social Rights Co-lead for the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a registered charitable trust in New Zealand that provides human rights data to governments, advocates, and journalists around the world.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/americans-are-not-as-well-off-as-people-in-peer-nations-us-safety-nets-shortfalls-show-up-in-global-data/

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2026, that the Trump administration may revoke the temporary protected status of 350,000 Haitians.

This is not the first time a legal challenge to TPS has held Haitians’ future in the balance: During his first administration, President Donald Trump attempted to terminate Haitian TPS but was blocked by a U.S.

District Court ruling. With the latest Supreme Court ruling, the return of these migrants to Haiti appears to be the administration’s aim.

Haitian families, who for years have lived under the uncertainty of their TPS renewal, now face a new and more immediate uncertainty: What losing TPS could mean for their ability to work, remain with their families and plan for the future.

Research on migration-related stress suggests that these consequences may weigh especially heavily on Haitian women. As a Haitian public health researcher, I understand the consequences of this decision through a dual lens. Research in my field helps me examine how it may affect Haitian women’s emotional well-being, mental health and resilience.

At the same time, as an international graduate student I have experienced how U.S. immigration and travel policies can affect the lives and opportunities of people from Haiti. I’ve also watched relatives who migrated from Haiti navigate the migration system directly.

These experiences have shown me that immigration decisions are rarely just about paperwork. They are also about rent, work, children, remittances and the fear of starting over again.

Building community in uncertainty Many Haitian TPS holders have been living in the U.S. for years, some since 2010 when Haiti was first designated for TPS after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people, injured 300,000 and displaced 1.5 million.

Florida is central to their story: Nearly half of the 1.1 million Haitian immigrants to the U.S. live in the Sunshine State, with especially large communities in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Over time, Haitian women have built lives and sustained communities as parents, workers, churchgoers, students and caregivers.

The Supreme Court ruling now threatens both their families’ stability and the Florida communities shaped by their work, care and participation.

Haitian women as ‘poto mitan’ in the US Haitian women’s social roles are often understood through the concept of poto mitan, Haitian Creole for “central pole.” Women are the central pillars of family and community life.

Many have continued to support children, parents and relatives in Haiti while working, parenting, paying bills and contributing to the local economies in their Florida communities. The Supreme Court ruling intensifies the pressure behind these roles.

Some women may now face painful decisions about their U.S.-born children: Should they take them to Haiti, where they may encounter safety concerns, disrupted schooling and an unfamiliar environment? Or should the children remain in the United States, separated from their parents?

For many Haitian mothers, children’s well-being is at the center of such decisions. In my research with climate-displaced communities in northwest Haiti, the illness of one’s child or children emerged among the leading sources of anxiety.

So it’s not surprising that concerns around children’s health and safety weigh so heavily on women in this moment. Migrant Haitian women in the U.S. have helped organize and participate in traditional Haitian cultural celebrations in communities like Little Haiti in Miami, where this photo was taken.

Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Responsibilities across borders Research on Haitian immigrants found that migration-related stress can involve financial strain, language barriers, discrimination, family separation, loss of social networks and difficulty navigating work and daily life.

Other studies on Haitians living in Haiti and the U.S. also show how Haiti’s political instability, gang violence and displacement can affect mental health across borders. For Haitian women, this burden may include sending remittances, offering to make family decisions and caring for relatives across two countries.

In fact, one U.S.-based study conducted after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake found that 65% of Haitian migrant women reported sending more money to Haiti than they had the previous year, compared with 30% of men. These responsibilities can be sources of strength and connection, but they can also produce guilt, worry, exhaustion and distress when needs are urgent and resources are limited.

Research on Haitian populations in Florida has shown higher levels of migration-related stress among women than men, although the health effects of TPS uncertainty among Haitian women remain understudied. Similarly, broader research into caregiving has found links between prolonged financial and emotional stress and anxiety, depressive symptoms, sleep problems, exhaustion and declining physical health.

These overlapping demands show why immigration decisions, such as the TPS ruling, can affect Haitian women’s mental and physical health far beyond their legal status. Those pressures are compounded by the conditions they and their families may face in Haiti.

What returning to Haiti could mean For many Haitian women, the prospect of returning to Haiti raises serious safety concerns as well. Over the past decade, the country has faced repeated natural disasters along with slow recovery, political upheaval, economic hardship, food insecurity and escalating gang violence.

By March 2026, violence and instability had displaced more than 1.4 million people on the island. Schools and hospitals have been disrupted, families have been forced from their homes, and access to work and essential services has become increasingly limited.

Given these conditions, returning may feel neither safe nor realistic for many families. In this context women and girls face particular risks of sexual and gender-based violence. As a result, parents must consider not only their own safety but also what returning could mean for their children’s security, schooling and ability to remain with their families.

Resilience in uncertain times For Haitian women already carrying extensive emotional and caregiving responsibilities, the loss of TPS adds another layer of pressure, turning an immigration decision into difficult choices about the future of entire families.

These women’s strength, leadership and commitment to family are central to their communities in Florida and beyond. This is where their resilience comes in. Although the Supreme Court ruling resolved the legal question before the court, it did not remove the uncertainty looming over Haitian families.

Instead, it shifted that uncertainty into urgent decisions about safety, work, parenting, family separation and how to remain connected across two countries.

And much of the responsibility for navigating what comes next is likely to fall disproportionately on Haitian women.

Ammcise Apply received a Fulbright Foreign Student Program scholarship from 2023 to 2025 to support her doctoral studies in the United States.

The scholarship did not fund her research, and the funder has no role in the preparation and development of this article.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/for-haitian-women-in-florida-the-loss-of-tps-is-more-than-an-immigration-law-issue/

The expanded men’s World Cup in 2026 has given fans the chance to cheer on the exploits of first-time qualifiers, some of which many people might previously have struggled to locate on the map. Standout moments have already included Curaçao’s goal-keeping heroics in earning a draw against Ecuador and Cabo Verde’s upset by pegging back reigning champions Spain.

But one story has largely gone under the radar: the participation of Uzbekistan. According to some pundits, Uzbekistan should have collapsed into violent chaos years ago. Instead, it has become the first central Asian state to play on football’s grandest stage.

Behind this lies a fascinating tale of geopolitics and peace. In the 1990s, overwrought geopolitical analysis portrayed the region as dangerous and in desperate need of western salvation. This was particularly true of the US.

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to Jimmy Carter and an éminence grise of the US foreign policy establishment, dubbed central Asia “the Eurasian Balkans” on what he called the “grand chessboard” of great-power competition.

At the intersection of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sits the Ferghana Valley. With its complex patchwork of borders, enclaves and ethnic minorities, it became the focal point of this discourse of danger. A 1999 policy report written by American academics warned that, without US help, the valley could become “a breeding ground of terrorism” and “a hotbed of religious and political extremism”.

The Ferghana Valley sits on the borders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Bennian/Shutterstock Like most parts of the world, Uzbekistan has had its problems. Rapid economic growth has led to serious urban pollution, and youth unemployment is high, thanks to the growing population.

Like other countries in the region, a lack of political pluralism limits its ability to effectively grapple with these problems. But the dire scenarios predicted by western analysts have not come to pass. For my research on borders, nation-building and geopolitics in the Ferghana Valley, I interviewed policymakers across the region.

They all stressed the region’s ability to draw on historic cultural ties and practices of statecraft to manage the difficult transition from Soviet republics to independent nations. After Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ferghana Valley states inherited a set of complicated and disputed borders originally drawn as internal Soviet boundaries in the 1920s.

These have proved contentious – yet in recent years the three countries have made a series of deals to transfer territory and fully delimit their boundaries. The Khujand Declaration of March 2025 defined the boundary between the three valley states and put an end to decades of tension.

In terms of international experience, this counts as remarkably quick progress. Resolving border tensions It is in the Ferghana Valley itself where progress is most visible. I saw border tensions ratchet up in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

But in the past decade, a new generation of leaders has not only resolved territorial disputes but pushed a significant growth in cross-border economic, social and cultural connections. They have reopened dozens of previously closed border crossings, relaxed red tape and incentivised cross-border trade.

This has led to significant increases in regional trade and has eased ethnic tensions. In October 2025, the first Ferghana Valley Peace Forum brought governments and civil society together under a new platform for dialogue.

A key organiser of the event, Akramjon Ne’matov, the first deputy director of the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies, an influential state-affiliated thinktank in Tashkent, emphasised that “the forum’s goal is to strengthen trust and good-neighbourly relations, promoting a shared vision of the region as a space of cooperation and mutual benefit”.

According to Ne’matov, it serves as a robust response to the vision presented in Brzezinski’s “grand chessboard”. This outdated narrative was not only flawed but risked becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. It sowed mistrust rather than fostering development.

Despite initiatives like the ill-fated Central Asian Union, central Asia has not succeeded in creating formal EU-style regional institutions. Western academics have routinely dismissed such attempts as mere “virtual regionalism”.

But research from St Andrews University shows that informal arrangements between authoritarian governments to respect each other’s sovereignty and not allow single external powers to dominate have led to the emergence of an effective, informal regional order premised on personal diplomacy, stability and coexistence.

Shared destiny This digs deep into historical notions of shared destiny.

As a politician in Tashkent put it to me: “The important thing to keep in mind is that we are one home in central Asia, one culture.” As the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the wars in Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia and Ukraine wars suggest, central Asia has arguably been more successful at resolving post-cold war ethnic and border disputes than Europe.

In March this year, I joined a sell-out crowd at an Uzbek Super League match, cheering on Ferghana Neftchi as they beat Tashkent Lokomotiv 3-1. The game took place in an impressive modern stadium in Ferghana.

This confounded the predictions of 1990s analysts who saw the Ferghana Valley as the supposed locus of all the region’s ills.

Fellow fans were already looking forwards to the World Cup – although one wryly repeated to me a quip by comedian Hojiboy Tojiboev that the Uzbek team would “go there, eat ice-cream, and then come back”.

On the pitch, this first foray onto football’s biggest stage has been challenging for the “White Wolves”, as the Uzbek team is known.

But away from football, in our age of border closures and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, the west can learn a lot from Uzbekistan about how to manage regional tensions and plan shared futures.

Nick Megoran received funding from the Independent Social Research Foundation to undertake this work.

He is also a diehard Ferghana Neftchi FC fan.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/uzbekistans-world-cup-appearance-is-a-moment-of-pride-and-shows-off-central-asias-peaceful-development/

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com When my colleagues and I asked autistic people and parents of autistic children in Sweden how they feel about genetic research in autism, one response stood out: “I hope genetic research finds new ways to help us, not erase us.” It captures a tension that has shaped debates about autism genetic research for years.

Genetic research has transformed our understanding of autism.

Over 100 genetic variants associated with autism have been identified, and researchers continue to search for biological factors that might explain why some people are autistic and why autistic people can have very different experiences and support needs.

Our recent study found that most autistic people and parents of autistic children are not opposed to this research. Most participants expressed willingness to take part in genetic studies and viewed efforts to understand the genetic causes of autism positively.

At the same time, that support came with important reservations. The primary concern was not the science itself, but how genetic information might be used in the future. Many participants feared that genetic discoveries could contribute to efforts to eliminate autism and contribute to what they viewed as a form of modern eugenics.

One participant wrote: “When people start checking fetal genes to eliminate all deviations, it is honestly eugenics … If this discussion existed about any other group of people, everyone would call it Nazi ideas and say no thanks.” Another said: “I am afraid we will all be sent to gas chambers to be eradicated in a society that wants more efficiency and fewer people who are not seen as useful.” These fears may sound extreme, but they reflect a broader concern that autistic people are increasingly expressing.

Advances in genetics could be used to reduce the number of autistic people rather than improve the lives of those who already exist. One participant put it starkly: “Abort Aspies [autistic people], see living Aspies as walking failed abortions who should have been killed.” Others worried that emerging reproductive technologies could deepen social inequalities.

One participant commented: “Those who have the economic means to modify their future children and give them an inborn advantage in life … could dominate their future professional fields.” Where these concerns become real Although the predictive power of such screening for complex traits like autism remains limited, companies are already marketing these services.

For example, Nucleus Genomics markets polygenic embryo screening for autism among other conditions. Their company advertises these services using the slogan: Have your best baby. Jonathan Anomaly, co-founder of Herasight, a company that offers polygenic embryo screening, openly advocates for these technologies.

In his article Defending eugenics, he argues that parents should use tools like embryo screening to select for traits that will help future generations to thrive. Against this backdrop, participants’ fears about eugenics appear less abstract.

Autistic people are worried about being erased by embryo screening. Studio Romantic/Shutterstock.com The debate became particularly visible when Spectrum 10K, the largest autism genetics project ever launched in the UK, was paused in 2021 following a backlash from some autistic campaigners.

The campaigners questioned whether the research would ultimately benefit autistic people and raised concerns that genetic information could be misused to pursue a “cure” or eradication of autism. Campaign group Boycott Spectrum 10k had the slogan “Nothing about us, without us”, which captured a central concern raised in that debate.

Autistic people do not only want to be included in research, but they also want to have a meaningful role in shaping what is studied and how findings are used. A previous study has suggested that autistic people and researchers do not always prioritise the same questions.

Researchers often focus on causes and biology, while autistic people frequently emphasise quality of life, support and everyday challenges. This mismatch may help explain why genetic research can generate mistrust even when intentions are positive.

Our findings suggest that public discussions sometimes frame autism genetics too simply. Participants were not broadly opposed to genetic research in autism. Most supported it. Many wanted more research, not less. What they objected to was the possibility that genetic research in autism could be used to make autistic people disappear.

For many participants, the value of autism genetics depended less on what scientists discover than on how those discoveries are used. Research aimed at understanding autism and supporting autistic people was welcomed. Research perceived as contributing to their elimination was not.

That distinction may help explain why debates around autism genetics can become so emotionally charged. The disagreement is often not about the science itself.

It is about who shapes the research, whose voices are heard, and the future that the science might help create.

For this study, Samuelle Fajutrao Falk has previously received funding from Sällskapet Barnavård.

This study has also received funding from Hjärnfonden and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/autistic-people-arent-afraid-of-genetic-research-they-are-afraid-of-what-scientists-might-do-with-it/

voronaman/Shutterstock For most people, a hot summer’s day is uncomfortable. For someone with scarred lungs, it can become a medical risk. People living with interstitial lung disease (ILD) are especially vulnerable during extreme heat.

As climate change drives more frequent and intense heatwaves, people with ILD will need better protection from hot weather and related health risks. ILD is an umbrella term for more than 200 lung conditions. These conditions cause inflammation, the body’s immune response to injury or irritation, and fibrosis, which means lung scarring.

As scar tissue builds up, the lungs become stiffer and less able to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream, making breathing harder. Many ILDs, particularly idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) – a form of lung scarring that develops without a clear known cause – affect people over 65.

Older adults with ILD often also live with other long-term conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or chronic kidney disease. These can reduce the body’s ability to cope with stresses such as extreme heat.

Hot weather forces the body to work harder to stay cool. The heart pumps more blood towards the skin, breathing can become more difficult, and oxygen demand may increase. For people with ILD, whose lungs already struggle to supply enough oxygen, this can lead to worsening breathlessness, fatigue and reduced exercise tolerance.

Dehydration, which is common during heatwaves, can cause weakness, dizziness or low blood pressure. This can be a particular problem for older adults taking medicines such as diuretics, often known as water tablets, which help the body get rid of excess fluid.

Heatwaves can also bring environmental hazards. Higher levels of ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant formed when sunlight reacts with emissions from vehicles and industry, can irritate the lungs. Wildfire smoke and airborne particles, meaning tiny pieces of pollution in the air, can also worsen breathing symptoms.

A 2026 review concluded that these exposures may trigger flare-ups and could contribute to disease progression by increasing inflammation and biological processes linked to lung fibrosis. Risk reduction There are practical steps that can reduce the risks.

People with ILD should check local weather forecasts and heat-health alerts during hot weather.

It can also help to make a simple plan: who to contact if symptoms worsen, where to go if the home becomes too hot, what to do during a power cut if using oxygen equipment, and how to get medical advice.

During extreme heat, people with ILD should avoid being outdoors during the hottest part of the day. For people with moderate to severe ILD, fatigue is often already a limiting factor. Essential activities are best planned for the early morning or evening, when temperatures are lower.

Keeping indoor spaces cool is equally important. Closing curtains or blinds during the day, improving ventilation during cooler evenings, and using air conditioning where available can help maintain a safer indoor temperature. Fans may also help some people manage breathlessness.

A small pilot study of handheld fans in people with ILD found that some patients considered them useful for breathlessness relief, although they should not replace medical care. Where air conditioning is unavailable, public buildings such as libraries, community centres or shopping centres may provide a cooler refuge.

Staying hydrated is another important measure. Drinking water regularly helps replace fluid lost through sweating, although people with heart failure or kidney disease should follow advice from their healthcare team if they have fluid restrictions.

People with ILD should continue taking prescribed medications exactly as directed. Antifibrotic medicines, which are drugs used to slow lung scarring in some types of ILD, remain important during hot weather and should be stored according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Those using home oxygen should ensure they have an adequate supply. People who use an oxygen concentrator, a machine that takes oxygen from room air and delivers it through tubing, should know what to do during power cuts.

Oxygen equipment should also be kept away from heat sources. Some people with ILD use home spirometry to monitor lung function between clinic visits. Spirometry is a breathing test that measures how much air a person can blow out and how quickly.

While home spirometry can provide useful information, it should not be interpreted in isolation, especially during a heatwave. Qualitative research has shown that patients value home spirometry but can find fluctuating results difficult to interpret without support.

Heat, dehydration, fatigue or difficulty blowing out the fullest possible breath may also affect readings. Instead of focusing on spirometry alone, people should pay attention to the bigger picture. Increasing breathlessness, needing more oxygen than usual, walking shorter distances, worsening cough, unusual fatigue or finding everyday activities more difficult may all be signs that the body is struggling with the heat.

These changes should prompt discussion with a GP, specialist nurse or ILD team. Because many people with ILD are older and may live alone, support from family members, neighbours and carers becomes important during heatwaves.

A simple phone call or visit to check that someone is staying cool, drinking enough fluids and coping with symptoms can make a significant difference. People should also know when to seek medical advice. Worsening breathlessness, increasing oxygen requirements, chest pain, confusion, fainting, fever or symptoms that do not improve with rest should never be ignored.

Early assessment can help identify an exacerbation, also called a flare-up, which is a sudden worsening of the condition. Prompt treatment may help limit serious complications. As the climate continues to warm, healthcare will need to adapt to protect people who are especially vulnerable to heat.

Helping people understand environmental risks, prepare for extreme weather and recognise changes in symptoms will become an essential part of living well with ILD.

Anne-Marie Russell 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/as-the-temperature-rises-so-do-the-risks-for-people-living-with-interstitial-lung-disease/

Canada takes on Qatar on June 18, 2026, in a battle between a democracy and an autocratic nation.

Emilee Chinn/Getty Images It is often said – by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and many others – that soccer is the “most democratic sport.” That sentiment is based in large part on the sport’s global appeal and long history of popularity across class and racial lines.

But whether that axiom applies to the quadrennial World Cup tournament is a different question. On occasions in the past, authoritarian governments have used the tournament to boost their regimes.

Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini did so when Italy hosted the 1934 World Cup, manipulating the games and handpicking officials to boost the chances for the home team, who went on to beat democratic Czechoslovakia in the final.

Likewise, in 1978, Argentina’s dictatorship used both the tournament’s hosting and the national team’s victory to “sportswash” the brutal repression that had accompanied the military junta’s seizure of power. Fascist Italy hosted and won the second World Cup in 1934.

Wikimedia Commons In each of those notable cases, the team of an authoritarian country won the tournament. But as a political scientist and soccer enthusiast, I was curious to see how countries in authoritarian versus democratic countries had fared in the World Cup over time.

So in the run-up to this year’s tournament, I looked back through the records of the 22 past World Cups; I also cast an eye over the expanded 48 countries represented at the 2026 tournament. For the World Cups between 1930 and 2018, I turned to Polity data, which looks at how power is concentrated in the political system.

On a minus 10 to plus 10 scale, democracies are those with a Polity score of plus 6 and plus 10; autocracies have a minus 6 to minus 10; and anocracies – countries that are “partially free” — have a rating of minus 5 to plus 5 Many scholars recommend using multiple datasets when analyzing regime type.

And for the World Cups from 1974 to 2026, I also used rankings by the nonprofit Freedom House, which produces an annual index of the state of civil and political rights in every country in the world.

They measure countries as free, partly free and not free. What the data shows In the first few World Cup tournaments, free countries did not perform particularly well. From 1930-1962, there were two authoritarian champions (Italy in 1934 and 1938), three anocratic winners (Uruguay in 1930 and 1950 and Brazil in 1962) and two democratic winners (West Germany in 1954 and a pre-dictatorship Brazil in 1958).

When it comes to finalists, in the first 32 years, there were six authoritarian countries represented in the final games, four anocracies and a mere four democracies.

But since 1966 — the first World Cup meeting between two democracies, with England prevailing over West Germany — there have been only two authoritarian winners: Brazil in 1970 and Argentina in 1978 – the last autocratic country to win the tournament.

The 10 winning countries from 1982-2018 have all been democracies. Further, all runners-up since 1962 have been democracies, too. Looking at the entire 1930-2018 period, Polity data shows that 71.4% of participants in final games have been democracies, with less than 20% of finalists being autocratic nations and 9.5% being anocracies.

When using the Freedom House index, I found that free states have made up 23 of the 26 final game participants from 1974 onward, or 88% of the total, and 11 champions. There’s only been one partly free winner — Brazil in 1994 — and one not free winner, Argentina in 1978.

How does this compare with worldwide numbers of regime type over time? In 1930, the year of the first FIFA tournament, Polity data shows that only 21.7% of the world’s countries were democratic, with 44.6% being authoritarian and 33.7% deemed anocratic.

By 1966, democracies fell to 20.8%, while authoritarian countries made up 40.8% of the world. During the 2018 World Cup, the world’s countries deemed to be democracies had risen to almost 60, using Polity data, while authoritarian states slipped to 12%.

The rest are either anocratic or “transitioning.” Democracy – a winning formula? But what about the 2026 World Cup participants? Of the 48 countries represented, 43.1% are “free” nations, according to Freedom House. The “not free” group comprised 26.7% of all countries.

This is a near reversal of 1974, the first World Cup year for which Freedom House data is available. Back then, free nations made up 27% of countries in the world, while not free countries comprised 41.4% of world’s nations.

And democracies are tipped for success in 2026.

The top 11 FIFA-ranked countries are all “free.” For the top 19 countries, all but two — Morocco and Ecuador — are free, and those two are ranked by Freedom House as “partly free.” Of the lowest-ranked 11 countries in the tournament, more than half are unfree.

Countering the sportswashing The data shows that democracies are overrepresented at the World Cup and also tend to do better than authoritarian nations – but does that matter?

I would argue “yes.” At a time when autocratic nations use sport as a propaganda tool, and FIFA seemingly turns a blind eye to the human rights records of hosting nations, the fact that democracies tend to prevail on the pitch feels like a victory for free nations.

LaGrange College undergraduates Jenna Pittman, Daniel Cody and Eli Rogers contributed to the research on which this article is based.

John A. Tures 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/does-the-world-cup-favor-democratic-or-autocratic-nations-i-did-some-number-crunching-to-find-out/

Two deaths related to Robin Hood have put the fictional medieval outlaw in the news recently.

The release of The Death of Robin Hood featuring Hugh Jackman as the titular hero has coincided with the sad news of the death of the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, the tree that legend has it was one the outlaw’s hideouts.

But why is Robin Hood a household name the world over when the names of other medieval outlaws remain largely unknown?

Robin Hood’s earliest literary death is a rather rushed affair at the end of the 15th-century story, A Gest of Robyn Hode, when the prioress of Kirklees kills him in a botched attempt at bloodletting.

This ending has in part inspired director Michael Sarnoski’s grittier take on the hero in The Death of Robin Hood. Although early stories of Robin Hood do not connect the outlaw with the Major Oak of Sherwood specifically, they do portray the outlaw and his men repeatedly meeting under a “trystle”, or meeting tree.

It is not difficult to imagine how such legends would coalesce around a distinctive Sherwood tree like the Major Oak. The trailer for The Death of Robin Hood. Not your Disney Robin Hood Robin’s fellow medieval outlaws remain largely unknown today.

How many know the exploits of Fulk FitzWarin, Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, Gamelyn, Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough or William Cloudesley? In part, Robin has endured because he was all things to all men, appealing to a wide range of audiences in medieval society.

The legend has always been mutable, even in its earliest iterations – and the hero has been reimagined with every retelling. Page from an early 16th century edition of A Gest of Robyn Hode. National Library of Scotland The Robin Hood of the earliest surviving stories, for example, looks decidedly different to most modern adaptations.

There is no Maid Marian love interest, for example. Instead, the outlaw is devoted to the Virgin Mary. For love of her he would hurt no women. Robin rewards honesty and fights corruption, but hardly along clear-cut class lines.

Although he is said to have done “pore men moch god”, Robin does not hand out alms to peasants. Instead, he loans money to a poor, honest knight who was down on his luck. Robin Hood is also capable of surprising acts of violence.

Although the violence of the early stories is often used for comedic effect, there is a darker undertone to some of the stories. After fighting Guy of Gisborne, for example, Robin beheads him, puts Guy’s head on his bow staff and mutilates his face so that no one would recognise him.

It is this more brutal and tortured Robin Hood that Hugh Jackman’s character seeks to embody. Forgotten medieval outlaws It is difficult to eulogise the actions of real outlaws of medieval England, because they often led brutal lives that would sit ill at ease with modern sensibilities.

Real outlaw gangs, such as the Coterels and Folvilles of the early 14th century, carried out many robberies, murders, kidnappings, and ran protection rackets and carried out extortion schemes. Such was the infamy of the latter that their brand of rough justice became known as “Folville’s law”.

Yet, there were other stories of legendary outlaws circulating in medieval England. One such, Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William Cloudesley, tells the story of three northern outlaws of Inglewood Forest in the north-west of England.

The three titular heroes are outlawed for poaching, an act which would have elicited sympathy among many lower down the social order. After being outlawed, William Cloudesley sneaked into Carlisle town to see his wife and three small children.

Betrayed and besieged, Alice, his “true wedded wyfe”, took up a poleaxe to defend the front door while William shoots at the sheriff’s men who have come to arrest him. The sheriff set fire to their house and William held off the sheriff’s men, allowing his family to escape from a window.

After his bowstring lies in ruins because of the fire, William was captured and condemned to hang, and Carlisle locked down. Enter the town swineherd, a young boy, who snuck out of Carlisle to inform the other outlaws, Adam and Clim, of William’s capture.

The pair mount a daring last-minute gallows rescue straight out of the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. They then kill 300 officials in their bid to escape. Seeking a royal pardon, William demonstrates his archery prowess by shooting an apple off his seven-year-old son’s head in a dramatic finale, akin to the legend of William Tell.

It is thus in William Cloudesley that we find the fullest articulation of pride in the archery skills of those from the “north countree”. It is in Alice that we see the struggles of an outlaw’s wife.

It is in the town swineherd that we see the reciprocal bonds of social banditry at work.

And it is in the relationship between the three outlaws that we see heroic feats of daring camaraderie as when, beset on all sides by the officials of Carlisle, William declares to his brethren: “Thys daye let us togyder lyve and deye.” Such scenes have long since been incorporated into the Robin Hood tradition, and yet many did not begin there.

They began with three largely unknown outlaws of Inglewood Forest.

Perhaps it is time for them to step out of Robin’s considerable shadow and, in so doing, showcase the varied and rich culture of medieval English outlaws.

Alex Brown receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust for the research project grant, ‘Modelling the Black Death and Social Connectivity in Medieval England’.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/26/robin-hood-was-often-far-more-violent-than-modern-legend-but-he-wasnt-the-most-extreme-medieval-outlaw/