The Conversation

Trump’s immunity arguments at Supreme Court highlight dangers − while prosecutors stress larger danger of removing legal accountability

Written by Claire B. Wofford, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Charleston

A view of the Supreme Court on April 25, 2024, when justices heard arguments about immunity involving former President Donald Trump. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 25, 2024, in a case that will change the course of American history. That case is Trump v. United States, in which the justices...

How bird flu virus fragments get into milk sold in stores, and what the spread of H5N1 in cows means for the dairy industry and milk drinkers

Written by Noelia Silva del Rio, Associate Specialist in Cooperative Extension, Production Medicine and Food Safety, University of California, Davis

Cows typically get over avian flu in a couple of weeks, but it's an economic blow for farms.AP Photo/Charlie Litchfield

The discovery of fragments of avian flu virus in milk sold in U.S. stores, including in about 20% of samples in initial testing across the country, suggests that the H5N1 virus may be more widespread in dairy cattle than...

The US is one of the least trade-oriented countries in the world – despite laying the groundwork for today’s globalized system

Written by Peter A. Coclanis, Professor of History; Director of the Global Research Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Just how 'open' is the U.S. after all?Nancy Nehring/Moment via Getty Images

Given the spate of news about international trade lately, Americans might be surprised to learn that the U.S. isn’t very dependent on it. Indeed, looking at trade as a percentage of gross domestic product – a metric economists sometimes call the “openness...

Arizona’s 1864 abortion law was made in a women’s rights desert – here’s what life was like then

Written by Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State University

A group of men and women, including two soldiers, on a porch in Fort Verde, Ariz., in 1886.Buyenlarge/Getty Images

Dora Juhl, a 15-year-old teenager, walked into Dr. Rosa Goodrich Boido’s obstetrical practice in Phoenix in January 1918. Juhl wanted to end her pregnancy.

But abortion was illegal in Arizona.

Boido, the city’s sole female...

Large retailers don’t have smokestacks, but they generate a lot of pollution − and states are starting to regulate it

Written by Johnathan Williams, Assistant Professor of History, University of Northern Iowa

One of many trucks that move Target goods nationwide.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Did you receive a mail-order package this week? Carriers in the U.S. shipped 64 packages for every American in 2022, so it’s quite possible.

That commerce reflects the expansion of large-scale retail in recent decades, especially big-box chains like Walmart,...

The Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future, and NASA is calling on private companies for backup

Written by Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

The equipment planned to help bring samples back from Mars. NASA/JPL

A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040.

The mission would be the first to try to return...

The costs of workplace violence are too high to ignore

Written by Miranda Kitterlin-Lynch, Associate Professor, Coca-Cola Endowed Professor, Florida International University

Violence and harassment on the job are all too common: More than 1 in 5 workers worldwide have experienced it, according to the International Labor Organization, with women slightly more likely to be affected than men. In the U.S., more than 2 million workers face violence on the job each year – and those are just the cases that get reported....

Biden administration tells employers to stop shackling workers with ‘noncompete agreements’

Written by Raymond Hogler, Professor Emeritus of Management, Colorado State University

Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission's chair, announced the ban.Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP

Most American workers are hired “at will”: Employers owe their employees nothing in the relationship except earned wages, and employees are at liberty to quit at their option. As the rule is generally stated, either party may terminate the...

Banning TikTok won’t solve social media’s foreign influence, teen harm and data privacy problems

Written by Sarah Florini, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State University

It's not just TikTok. Solen Feyissa/Flickr, CC BY-SA

When President Joe Biden signed a US$95 billion foreign aid bill into law on April 24, 2024, it started the clock on a nine-month window for TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. The president can extend the deadline by three months, and TikTok has indicated that...

IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects

Written by Doug Cowen, Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State

IceCube sits on tons of clear ice, allowing scientists to make out neutrino interactions. Cmichel67/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

About a trillion tiny particles called neutrinos pass through you every second. Created during the Big Bang, these “relic” neutrinos exist throughout the entire universe, but they can’t harm you. In fact,...