News Updates

2/26/18 – Three signals recently sounded for the coal industry, according to an opinion article in the New York Times, with all of them suggesting that coal-fired power in the United States is in trouble and likely won’t be making a significant comeback. In Issues, an experienced environmental consultant has laid out a timeline of coal’s decline as an energy source over the past century, tracing it to technological and social changes rather than to what conservative critics have called a political “war on coal.”

2/23/18 – Migratory herds of animals, the lifeblood of many landscapes in the western United States, face increasing perils, says a researcher who tracks them, but in a ray of hope, government and private groups have proposed a variety of creative ways to help these wanderers. In an earlier analysis in Issues, a specialist in the conservation of biodiversity took a global look at threats to animal migrations, calling for international action to sustain these inspiring natural wonders.

2/20/18 – In Issues recently, a scholar who studies the ethical and social dimensions of emerging technologies laid out the ways that nations and groups can use “weaponized narratives” to undermine the common values and beliefs of their adversaries. Now, the concept has struck home, with the US Justice Department indicting a group of Russian individuals and companies for conducting a long-running internet scheme to criminally interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and details emerging about how the “troll factory” seamlessly insinuated its workers into the US political conversation.

2/15/18 – President Trump just called for lawmakers to raise the federal fuel tax to help pay for the nation’s roads and bridges, but the proposal met fierce opposition and its fate remains uncertain. There may be a better mousetrap anyway. In Issues, an engineer who studies technological adaptation recently proposed shifting to a vehicle mileage tax, calling it a fair and adaptable way to fund highway needs in the face of coming dramatic changes in the vehicles that people drive and how they use them.

2/14/18 – The Trump administration just announced its long-awaited infrastructure plan, which is light on federal spending and heavy on expected investments from the private sector. But in Issues, two scholars recently detailed how private investors in past efforts to deploy three major types of infrastructure—railroads, electricity, and the internet—initially targeted communities that were already well off. Matters were set aright only by “citizen activism that demanded fairer treatment for average Americans,” they said, adding a call for new policies that “recognize the public benefits of infrastructure and seek to level the playing field for underserved areas.”

2/13/18 – Arrests of immigrants in the United States surged by 40% during the past fiscal year, with the biggest jump occurring among immigrants who had committed no crime other than being in the country illegally. This marks one of many ways that government has defined millions of people as being “outside of civil society,” a leading sociologist recently noted in Issues, adding that “We need to think about whether that is something we want our laws to do…and whether there might be a better way of thinking about the human rights of people and the right to social inclusion.”

2/9/18 – The United States is at a “tipping point” with its fading nuclear power sector, a federal official told a US congressional committee, adding that its future will depend on developing advanced reactors that are cheaper to build and safer to operate. Issues has recently taken several deep dives into these waters, with experts offering an even fuller roadmap for how to revitalize nuclear energy and explaining why it would be a strategic mistake for the nation to abandon its leadership in this important technology market to international competitors who are actively pushing ahead.

2/8/18 – The US Department of Housing and Urban Development just announced that states receiving federal funding for recovery following last year’s three major hurricanes must take into account projected rises in sea level when building in flood-prone areas. The rule aligns with proposals offered recently in Issues as analysts detailed why the nation needs to rethink its infrastructure—the technical components as well as the varied systems for managing them—in the face of climate change and what actions will help ensure resilience.

2/7/18 – As a symbol of the private sector venturing into the space business, little might rise higher than Falcon Heavy, the giant rocket built and test-launched recently by SpaceX, a company owned by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, and carrying as payload a red electric sports car from another Musk company, Tesla. But this is just one example of an emerging trend. A space analyst recently noted in Issues that with more businesses—and more countries—expanding their activities, the United States, long the dominant player, will need to reshape its space agencies and policies beyond their conventional boundaries.

2/6/18 – Mass incarceration in the United States is a public health scourge that hits not only those locked up but also their family members and even the workers in detention settings, says a new review. In Issues, two correctional experts also recently examined the status of health care in prisons and jails, offering a set of policy recommendations that would benefit inmates, their home communities, and the nation at large.

2/1/18 – As the flu continues to spread, false reports have also marched across the internet, including claims that a government doctor linked the epidemic to the flu vaccine itself. Indeed, an innovator in digital networks recently suggested in Issues that coping with major disease outbreaks will likely be complicated by misinformation magnified through the explosion of unfiltered channels of communication, and he called for assembling a global volunteer corps of scientists and communicators who can respond quickly and precisely to social and scientific challenges that arise during health emergencies.