The Conversation

A new financial report projects the Social Security trust fund will face depletion by 2032, when incoming revenue might cover only 78 percent of scheduled retirement benefits. Deeper structural challenges drive the crisis. Declining birth rates, lower net migration, and high national debt complicate potential solutions. Congress must secure a bipartisan compromise soon to protect workers and avoid a severe political emergency.

Global ocean temperatures are already near record highs, so El Niño-induced marine heat waves could push many sensitive fisheries to a breaking point. Warm water might not seem like a big deal, especially to surfers hoping to leave their wetsuits at home. But for many marine organisms that are highly adapted to specific water temperatures, marine heat waves can make living in the ocean feel like running a marathon.

The result of each match in the World Cup can be simulated. We took into account the official tournament draw and all FIFA rules, including the possibility of overtime and penalty shootouts. We ran the simulation 100,000 times to determine the tournament’s most likely course. The results show that Spain is the favorite for the title with a winning probability of 14.5%, closely followed by England and France, each at 12.4%, and Germany at 11.2%.

The 2026 World Cup promises to be the planet’s most-watched sporting event. It’s also poised to generate its fair share of controversy. The Trump administration is historically unpopular, and its critics are already concerned about sportswashing: when governments use the spectacle of athletic competition to burnish their image and distract the public. It’s natural for fans who are critical of their country’s behavior sometimes feel ambivalent about rooting for their national sports teams.

This disparagement of the word “soccer” is not only petty and tiresome – it is also incorrect. It ignores the roots of the sport and the development of the language of the game. Rather than making the word taboo, the football ecosystem should embrace it. “Soccer” was freely and proudly used in the British press and in public for nearly a century, until the 1980s. The British press continues to use “soccer” and “football” interchangeably to avoid repetitive writing.

There is a crowded marketplace of reading textbooks and software for schools to purchase, and it is often difficult to determine which one is better than the others. As a result, schools may end up purchasing new, expensive materials that do little to improve reading skills.

The defensive, cynical play of Italia ’90 pushed FIFA to implement major rule changes ahead of the 1994 World Cup. The introduction of the backpass rule and the three-point system incentivized attacking play. These historic adjustments permanently elevated the ethical and aesthetic standards of the sport. Fans should expect high-quality, entertaining matches when the tournament returns to North America.

The most culturally diverse men’s football World Cup in history is taking place in the United States at a time when foreign nationals feel less and less welcome in the country. In 2026, the US has created an unwelcome situation for potential travellers. ICE raids on suspected migrant populations have dominated the news for months. This has an impact on numbers.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, unemployment rose, hiring slowed and wage growth stagnated. The construction sector was hit particularly hard. While areas with heavier ICE enforcement saw a drop in employment among immigrants, there was no increase in either employment or wages among U.S. citizens.

Perverse incentives create different cycles of vulnerability across income levels. The problem with federal disaster insurance today isn’t just about subsidizing wealthier coastal homeowners – it’s equally about leaving low-income households systematically underinsured without resources to either protect themselves or leave.

Recent surveys indicate nearly half of young Americans cannot identify a single Holocaust site, an ignorance that mirrors historical patterns in postwar West Germany. Significant knowledge gaps and antisemitic incidents previously forced German educational reforms. These reforms moved schools toward active learning and primary source analysis.

Aas interest in self-care continues to grow, Americans’ mental health is getting worse. Cut off television, email, Zooming, social media, streaming or texting. The benefits are almost immediate. You sleep better, have a longer attention span, and have a newfound sense of mental quiet. These effects reflected a well-established principle in neuroscience: When cognitive and emotional stimuli decrease, the brain’s regulatory systems can recover from overload and chronic stress.

The deadly May 2026 assault on the Islamic Center of San Diego highlights a dangerous global trend of far-right extremists weaponizing distorted European history. Assailants draw violent inspiration from the Crusades, Nazi iconography, and white nationalist myths to justify Islamophobic and antisemitic atrocities. But authentic Muslim and Arab history is in short supply in schools.

Research by political scientist Stephen Neely reveals that social media is a primary driver of chronic political stress in America. Surveys from 2024 show over 100 million adults experience significant stress reactions, including sleep loss and fractured relationships. Algorithmic platforms prioritize outrage and engagement, making active participants especially vulnerable. This generational shift in news consumption has left younger cohorts particularly susceptible to psychological exhaustion.

River bathing was widely practised over the last few centuries, and in the Seine, it has survived to the present day despite bans on swimming. The practice does not only include recreational or sporting dimensions – it is also climate-related, at a time when rising temperatures suggest that compliance with the Paris Agreement will be a difficult, if not impossible task.

Police are getting a boost from artificial intelligence, with algorithms now able to draft police reports in minutes. The technology promises to make police reports more accurate and comprehensive, as well as save officers time. The catch is that instead of writing the first draft of your college English paper, this document can determine someone’s liberty in court. An error, omission or hallucination can risk the integrity of a prosecution or, worse, justify a false arrest. While police officers must sign off on the final version, the bulk of the text, structure and formatting is AI-generated.

Compared to the widespread media coverage of the 2016 Ebola epidemic when it started, news reports on its aftermath were limited. As a result, very few people know that Ebola survivors have struggled to continue with their lives since the end of the epidemic. These survivors include widows, orphans who are now homeless, and thousands of people who are now blind or have permanent vision problems.

This year’s International Booker Prize shortlist presents a diverse and intriguing array of books that all demonstrate the highly creative imagination and inventiveness of their authors. Across these novels, we meet the unreliable narrator of a meta-fiction, a failed modern witch, a family of Iranian émigrés, a filmmaker compromised by the Nazis, a brutal prison warden, and a gender-traversing figure who seeks to save their own skin by shapeshifting. Six literary experts guide you through the nominations.

Some groups of Trump voters are having second thoughts. The most regretful are those with whom Trump made significant gains in 2024. They include political independents, African Americans, younger people and those with more education.

The 61st Venice Biennale has shifted from a spiritual artistic showcase into an ideological battlefield under new rightwing leadership. The reinstatement of controversial nations prompted the collective resignation of the official jury, widespread artist boycotts, and intense public demonstrations. Clashes between peaceful activists and riot police highlighted the tension. Art serves as a vehicle for state agendas and a tool for resistance.

US–China cooperation no longer automatically implies positive spillover effects for the rest of the world. It is at best a private bargain between two great powers, imposing hidden costs on those outside, looking in. The Trump administration has ushered in a noticeable shift in how the US views its economic interests: no longer premised on shared liberal values, but on spheres of influence among great powers. The question is not whether the US and China can cooperate. It is what kind of order their cooperation will produce.

Automatic license plate readers occupy thousands of American intersections, integrating with advanced artificial intelligence and creating searchable databases facilitating mass surveillance of marginalized communities. Private companies provide the equipment frequently bypassing local oversight laws. Significant costs exist. Little evidence supports claims regarding violent crime reduction. Activists are now organizing to resist this rapidly expanding government data dragnet nationwide across the United States today.

When it comes to Hezbollah, Israel’s military simply cannot completely defeat a resistance movement that is so embedded in the social, political and cultural fabric of Lebanon. This would require not just a military victory, but the subjugation of its supporters and the delegitimisation of its ideology.

Critics frequently dismiss Disney World as a manufactured environment lacking true substance. This “authenticity objection” suggests the parks provide only mindless distraction. Philosophical analysis reveals Disney never purports to be anything other than a themed amusement park. Devoted fans also maintain their own unique identities outside this fantasy. The Magic Kingdom offers valuable spaces for diverse families to create lasting and collective memories together.

Intermittent fasting has become a buzzword in nutrition circles, with many people looking to it as a way to lose weight or improve their health. But new research from the Cochrane Collaboration shows intermittent fasting is no more effective for weight loss than receiving traditional dietary advice or even doing nothing at all.

Texas killed James G. Broadnax on April 30, 2026, for a 2008 double murder after prosecutors used 40 pages of Broadnax’s rap lyrics during the sentencing phase to argue a criminal mentality. Legal scholars identify a pattern of treating fictional lyrics as literal confessions, a practice that reflects historical racial stereotypes. Using art to justify executions extends the discriminatory legacy of Jim Crow laws into today’s courtrooms.

At its best, the U.S. is seen as allowing individuals the freedom to live the life they want. Liberty and rugged individualism have been hallmarks of America since its beginnings, so it should come as no surprise that they are also central to the American Dream. Given this, has the American Dream become more or less difficult to achieve over time? Unfortunately, for a growing number of Americans, it appears to be more difficult.

Traditional performance reviews are failing the modern workforce because they focus on retrospective assessments and reductive metrics. Employees often view these systems as significant failures yet keep using them due to institutional habits and a false sense of objectivity. Effective management requires a shift toward continuous feedback and adaptable objectives to better reflect the collaborative and creative nature of contemporary professional work environments.

Everything in space – from the Earth and Sun to black holes – accounts for just 15% of all matter in the universe. The rest of the cosmos seems to be made of an invisible material astronomers call dark matter. With the release of its first images this month, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun a 10-year mission to help unravel the mystery of dark matter. The observatory will continue the legacy of its namesake, a trailblazing astronomer who advanced our understanding of the other 85% of the universe.