The Conversation

Why repressive Saudi Arabia remains a US ally

Written by Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A demonstrator dressed as Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with blood on his hands protests outside the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2018.Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “approved an operation … to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” according...

Pope's upcoming visit brings attention to the dwindling population of Christians in Iraq

Written by Ramazan Kılınç, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska Omaha

A mural depicting Pope Francis on a concrete wall around the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, in preparation for the pontiff's visit, AP/Photo/Khalid Mohammed

Pope Francis will arrive in Iraq on Friday in a first-ever papal visit to the country that is expected to raise awareness about the challenges facing Iraqi Christians – a...

Colleges are eliminating sports teams – and runners and golfers are paying more of a price than football or basketball players

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

Over 5,000 student-athletes were directly affected by a recent wave of shutdowns of intercollegiate sports teams.Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

North Carolina Central University, a historically Black college, announced in February that its men’s baseball team – which formed in 1911 – would cease to exist after this...

News organizations that want journalists to engage with their audience may be setting them up for abuse

Written by Jacob L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Digital Audience Engagement, Arizona State University

Women journalists who engage with their audience often experience harassment and ugly comments.Justin Paget/Stone/Getty Images

News organizations are trying to do a better job connecting with their audiences, in hopes of overcoming the profession’s credibility problems and ensuring its long-term survival.

To do this, a growing number of...

Forcibly sterilized during Fujimori dictatorship, thousands of Peruvian women demand justice

Written by Ñusta Carranza Ko, Assistant Professor, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Baltimore

Victims of forced sterilizations protest in Lima, Peru, in 2014. Public hearings to uncover this dark chapter of the Fujimori dictatorship began in January. Erneseto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images

The regime of Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori sterilized 272,028 people between 1996 and 2001, the majority of them Indigenous women from poor, rural...

Scientist at work: Tracking the epic journeys of migratory birds in northwest Mexico

Written by Julián García Walther, PhD Student in Ornithology, University of South Carolina

Shorebirds gather by the thousands at important feeding and resting areas, but how individual birds move among sites remains a mystery.Julian Garcia-Walther, CC BY-ND

One morning in January, I found myself 30 feet (9 meters) up a tall metal pole, carrying 66 pounds (35 kilograms) of aluminum antennas and thick weatherproofed cabling. From this...

Two gaps to fill for the 2021-2022 winter wave of COVID-19 cases

Written by Maciej F. Boni, Associate Professor of Biology, Penn State

A sign in County Kildare, Ireland. in March 2020. Epidemiologists around the world worked hard to try to stop big parties in the face of rising caseloads of what would come to be called COVID-19. Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images

Epidemiologists – like oncologists and climate scientists – hate to be proven right. A year ago this...

How some people can end up living at airports for months – even years – at a time

Written by Janet Bednarek, Professor of History, University of Dayton

Mehran Karimi Nasseri sits among his belongings in a 2004 photograph taken at Charles de Gaulle Airport, where he lived for nearly 18 years.Eric Fougere/VIP Images/Corbis via Getty Images

In January, local authorities arrested a 36-year-old man named Aditya Singh after he had spent three months living at Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport....

Most US states don't have a filibuster – nor do many democratic countries

Written by Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster College

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, launches a filibuster in 2016.Senate Television via AP

As the U.S. Senate proceeds with its business, split 50-50 between Republicans on one side and Democrats and independents on the other, lawmakers and the public at large are concerned about the future of the filibuster.

Under the rules of the U.S....

Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax would reduce inequality – the problem is it's probably unconstitutional

Written by Beverly Moran, Professor of Law and Sociology, Vanderbilt University

Sen. Elizabeth Warren argues that her plan is constitutional.AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says it’s time to tax wealth.

The Massachusetts senator on March 1 introduced a bill to tax households worth over US$50 million and up to $1 billion at a rate of 2%, and anything over that at 3%. She first proposed the idea of a wealth tax d...