The Conversation

Republicans' anti-ESG attack may be silencing insurers, but it isn’t changing their pro-climate business decisions

Written by Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University

Insurers are facing rising costs from effects of climate change.© Marco Bottigelli/Moments via Getty Imagse

Over recent months there has been an orchestrated pushback against investors and insurers who integrate the risks of climate change into their business models. That pushback – emanating from Republican-led states – is having...

WHO's recommendation against the use of artificial sweeteners for weight loss leaves many questions unanswered

Written by Lindsey Schier, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Sugar alternatives go by many names including artificial sweeteners, low-calorie sweeteners and nonsugar sweeteners.Marie LaFauci/Moment via Getty Images

Do low-calorie sweeteners help with weight management? And are they safe for long-term use?

This is among the most controversial topics in nutritional science. In early May 2023, the World Health...

Will faster federal reviews speed up the clean energy shift? Two legal scholars explain what the National Environmental Policy Act does and doesn't do

Written by J.B. Ruhl, Professor of Law, Director, Program on Law and Innovation, and Co-director, Energy, Environment and Land Use Program, Vanderbilt University

NEPA requires federal agencies to analyze environmental impacts of projects like interstate highway construction.John Bohn/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The National Environmental Policy Act, enacted in 1970, is widely viewed as a keystone U.S. environmental law. For any major federal action that affects the environment, such as building an...

Astrud Gilberto spread bossa nova to a welcoming world – but got little love back in Brazil

Written by Mario Higa, Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies, Middlebury

Astrud Gilberto backstage at New York City's Birdland Jazz Club in 1964.Popsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images

Astrud Gilberto didn’t set out to be an ambassador of bossa nova, the laid-back Brazilian musical genre with rhythms recognizable to music lovers around the world.

According to Gilberto, who died on June 5, 2023, at...

What is incorruptibility? A scholar of Catholic worship explains

Written by Joanne M. Pierce, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross

People pray over the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster at the abbey of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, near Gower, Mo., in April 2023.AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Catholic tradition offers occasional examples of holy men and women whose bodies, exhumed some years after death, remained completely or partially untouched by the natural...

Arrests of 3 members of an Atlanta charity's board in a SWAT-team raid is highly unusual and could be unconstitutional

Written by Beth Gazley, Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University

Police arrested three people who have been aiding protesters at this Atlanta house in May 2023.AP Photo/Kate Brumback

On May 31, 2023, the Atlanta Police Department deployed a SWAT team to arrest Marlon Kautz, Adele MacLean and Savannah Patterson. These three people weren’t fugitives from justice or drug kingpins, but rather volunteer board...

Cost and lack of majors are among the top reasons why students leave for-profit colleges

Written by Molly Ott, Associate Professor of Higher & Postsecondary Education, Arizona State University

Students who attend for-profit colleges on average have higher student loan debt than those who attend public institutions.FatCamera via Getty Images

For the majority of students, the college where they enroll is often the one from where they will graduate. But not so for the approximately 1 million students who transfer each year from one school...

Messi is heading to the US as Saudi Arabia kicks off bidding war with MLS for aging soccer stars

Written by Stefan Szymanski, Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

Karim Benzema -- taking the money and running into the box.AP Photo/Hussein Malla

The announcements on consecutive days that the storied Real Madrid and France soccer star Karim Benzema is joining the Saudi Pro League and that Lionel Messi, thought by many to be soccer’s GOAT, intends to play in the United States’ Major League Soccer...

Oklahoma OKs the nation's first religious charter school – but litigation is likely to follow

Written by Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education in the School of Education and Health Sciences and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton

Courts have wrestled with questions about public funds for students at religious schools for decades.Godong/Stone via Getty Images

U.S. courts have long wrestled with the extent to which government funding can be used at private religious schools. And on June 5, 2023, Oklahoma’s five-person Statewide Virtual Charter School Board pushed this...

Kakhovka dam breach raises risk for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – receding waters narrow options for cooling

Written by Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant seen across the Dnieper River, which was receding after a downstream dam was destroyed.Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images

A blast on June 6, 2023, destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in eastern Ukraine. The rupture lowered water levels in a reservoir upriver at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in...