The Conversation

Trump-appointed federal judge rules Trump’s classified document case is unconstitutional – here’s how special counsels have been authorized before

Written by Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor, Westminster College

In this handout photo provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, stacks of boxes are seen in a storage room at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. U.S. Department of Justice/Getty Image

The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump dismissed the case on July 15, 2024.

U.S....

How to protect your home from wildfires – here’s what fire prevention experts say is most important

Written by Bryce Young, Graduate Student Researcher, Fire Center, University of Montana

Extreme heat has already made 2024 a busy wildfire year. More acres had burned by mid-July than in all of 2023, and several communities had lost homes to wildfires.

As fire season intensifies across the West, there are steps homeowners can take to make their homes less vulnerable to burning and increase the likelihood that firefighters can protect...

New research suggests estrogen and progesterone could play role in opioid addiction and relapse

Written by Jessica Loweth, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Virtua Health College of Medicine & Life Sciences, Rowan University

Neuroscientists are investigating how and when hormones affect the risk for relapse to prescription opioids.ArtistGNDphotography/E+ Collection via Getty Images

As opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. rose dramatically from 2014 to today, both Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey, cemented reputations as hotspots of the crisis.

In...

Trump’s assassination attempt reveals a major security breakdown – but doesn’t necessarily heighten the risk for political violence, a former FBI official explains

Written by Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event on July 13, 2024.Associated Press

As investigators analyze what led 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to assassinate former president Donald Trump – and how Crooks was able to fire at the former president at a heavily...

Trump assassination attempt reveals a major security breakdown – but doesn’t necessarily heighten the risk for political violence, a former FBI official explains

Written by Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event on July 13, 2024.Associated Press

As investigators analyze what led 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to assassinate former president Donald Trump – and how Crooks was able to fire at the former president at a heavily...

Electing a virtuous president would make immunity irrelevant, writes a political philosopher

Written by Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court granted substantial immunity from criminal charges to former President Donald Trump.AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File

The Supreme Court’s decision that grants presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for their “official acts” has been met by alarm by many legal scholars. Constitutional lawyer Michael...

Decades after Billie Holiday’s death, ‘Strange Fruit’ is still a searing testament to injustice – and of faithful solidarity with suffering

Written by Tracy Fessenden, Professor of Religious Studies, Arizona State University

Billie Holiday records her penultimate album, 'Lady in Satin,' in New York in 1957.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Sixty-five years ago, on July 17, 1959, Billie Holiday died at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. The 44-year-old singer arrived after being turned away from a nearby charity hospital on evidence of drug use, then lay for hours on a...

How Smithsonian curators scavenge political conventions to explain the present to the future and save everything from hats to buttons to umbrellas to soap

Written by Naomi Schalit, Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy, The Conversation US

Smithsonian curators collect campaign material like these tall state standards used at the 2016 GOP convention.Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Thousands of Republicans, from a presidential candidate to grassroots party members, began assembling in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024, for that quadrennial political ritual, the party convention. Political...

Could people turn Mars into another Earth? Here’s what it would take to transform its barren landscape into a life-friendly world

Written by Sven Bilén, Professor of Engineering Design, Electrical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, Penn State

An artist's illustration of what a terraformed Martian landscape might look like.Mark Stevenson/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Is it possible that one day we could make Mars like Earth?...

Flying in helicopters is safer than you might think – an aerospace engineer explains the technology and training that make it so

Written by Edward C. Smith, Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Director: Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence, Penn State

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter in flight.Vlad Lazarenko/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

Helicopters draw a lot of attention with their almost magical ability to hover, fly in any direction and operate without runways. They also help save many lives, often dramatically, with their extensive use in all-weather military missions, ambulance duties and...